Soccer / Beitar Jerusalem / Racist chants mean no fans for Bnei Sakhnin match - Haaretz

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Fri., December 28, 2007 Tevet 19, 5768

Israel Time: 02:03 (EST+7)

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Soccer / Beitar Jerusalem / Racist chants mean no fans for Bnei Sakhnin match

By Moshe Boker and Ali Gali

The Israel Football Association tribunal was in session again to discuss the meaning of racist and derisive chants. This time it ended with Beitar Jerusalem being punished with one match without a crowd and a fine of NIS 10,000. However, in light of how these things turned out in the past, it is still too early to determine how this will develop based on the fact that the sentence will be appealed to the IFA's highest court.

Attorney Israel Shimoni handed down the decision this time; it was Shimoni who acquited Beitar in the hearing about the boos during the moment of silence for Yitzhak Rabin. At the end of the tense hearing, Shimoni determined that the club will be forced to host its match in about two weeks against Bnei Sakhnin without fans.

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Shimoni rejected the claims made by the club's attorney, Elad Eisenberg, that the chants were not racist and that Sakhnin should be punished for its fans' chants of "Allah hu akhbar."

Beitar tried to explain that they did not have any control over the fans because the match in question was held at National Stadium in Ramat Gan.

"We have come to the decision by which the club does not absolve itself of responsibility for its fans simply because the match is not played at home," wrote Shimoni in his sentence. "A match in an away stadium is not a match played in a 'country without responsibility.' The conditions of 'to the best of its ability' obligates the accused to prove that it did everything in its power."

At Sakhnin, they were outraged by Eisenberg's comparisons during the course of the hearing. "The display of racism on the part of Beitar Jerusalem's fans against the prophet Mohammed could ignite Muslims on every street in the Arab sector. And the comparison the club made between 'Allah hu akhbar,' which praises God, to the racist chant 'The prophet Mohammed is dead,' is catastrophic."

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