The “Day After” in the Israeli world of sports following the war against Hamas that began when the terrorists attacked the Holy Land from the Gaza Strip is as murky as ever. So many questions and so few answers are known almost three months since October 7th, with almost all of the disciplines across the country are paying a price.

From soccer to basketball to Olympic sports and many more, each and every athlete, team and club are feeling the effects of the conflict in one way or another. It could be from severe financial implications to being displaced or from dealing with local associations and federations to continental or international organizations, sports just like any other industry in Israel is feeling the impact of the war not by the day but by the minute.

Constant changes and flexibility have been the name of the game so to speak with some being more resilient than others but that has always been part of the sports landscape in the country with it now just being more pronounced than ever.

The 2024 Olympic Games will take place in Paris this coming summer and while our athletes will no doubt compete in France as they have since the 1952 Helsinki Games, being able to top four medals in Tokyo may be quite a stretch. Many of the country’s judokas and gymnasts have been able to compete internationally since the outbreak of the war and perhaps that is where the Israel Olympic Committee will place the majority of their resources going forward since that is where the best chance to win is, but other areas will no doubt take a hit with budget cuts looming.

90 Israeli athletes took part in the 2020 edition with a large amount coming from the baseball team, however, that number will see a significant nosedive despite having 18 on the soccer team that will compete in the Olympics for the first time since the 1976 Games in Montreal.

While the Israeli soccer league has returned to play roughly six weeks after the beginning of the war, Home Front Command has yet to allow stadiums to accommodate fans at full capacity. When the league first returned to action there were no fans which was followed by 5,000 and now as the new year begins 15,000 are permitted to attend. For some teams like Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa, that amount still does not cover all of their season ticket holders as some are still left out in the cold.

On the plus side of the ledger, while the league’s teams are going to be playing twice a week for quite come time to make up for the matches that were put off, the majority of foreign players and coach in the case of Robbie Keane at Maccabi Tel Aviv have all returned to Israel which is not something that can be taken for granted. The quality of play has not seen a significant drop off because the majority of the rosters are made up of Sabras while the 5-6 foreigners per team are here to help elevate the play and are critical to the clubs, they are not relied upon to be the be all and end all for each team. To date, the leagues will also feature promotion and relegation despite some of the challenges that they have had to deal with which does make sense due to the ability to run a domestic competition at quite a high standard while the war continues to rage on.

In UEFA club competitions, both Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa were not allowed to host games in Israel during the group stages of Conference League and Europa League respectively. In February, the pair of clubs will be playing in the knockout rounds of the Conference League which will include at minimum one home game.

Just as they had to find a “home away from home” in the group stages with Serbia hosting the majority of their matches in empty stadiums just as it was during COVID-19, the chances that UEFA will allow Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa the opportunity to play their game in Israel is between slim and none. That of course will impact both the club’s revenues as well as lowering the chances that the teams will advance to the next round.

As for the Israel National Team, they will be participating in the European Championship Playoffs which will take place in March for the chance at one of the final places at the 2024 Euros which will be taking place in Germany this coming summer. The blue-and-white saw some of their qualifiers postponed as well as being moved from Israel to Hungary where they were allowed to host fans but in a stadium that held only 3,000 supporters. Should those games have been played in the Holy Land, or had they not had to play four games in 9 days, perhaps Israel would have been able to qualify directly. Instead the national team needed to go abroad to play all of their remaining qualification matches which also reduced their chances to finally punch their ticket to a major tournament for the first time since 1970.

All in all the soccer seems to be doing fine, however, that is far from the case in the world of basketball where one challenge after the next seems to be the norm after returning to play.

For starters, the four teams playing in the top three European competitions have had to move all of their home games abroad as three teams, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv are making Belgrade their home while Hapoel Holon headed to Riga. It should be noted that a number of other Israeli teams playing in some of the smaller European competitions were unable to participate due to ludicrous demands that were made which in essence forced them to bail out of the competitions due to financial considerations.

In Maccabi Tel Aviv’s case the situation is very complex because the Euroleague which is the competition they participate in has 34 regular season games with half now having to be played in Serbia while the other half being played across Europe. While Maccabi was able to push off a couple of games after October 7th, their Euroleague schedule has been jam packed since with no let up until mid-February in sight. In essence, the yellow-and-blue needed to move pretty much their entire operation from Tel Aviv to Belgrade in order to continue to compete in Europe.

With no fans being permitted in Pionir Arena and the Euroleague being the club’s main source of income from sold out season tickets, Maccabi is losing money hand over fist. While the other three teams are suffering losses, Maccabi is by far being hit the hardest when you add to the fact that their foreign players who are for the most part the most important component of the team are now being housed in Belgrade as well.

With the Israeli league returning to action a few weeks ago, that has added yet another element of expenses for the clubs in Europe, most significantly to Maccabi Tel Aviv as not only the financial side of things were being effected but also the physical side with so many flights.

However, with Maccabi cutting 15% of the players salaries, all of the imports recently refused to return to Israel for the domestic league games as only Israelis played which raised the ire of the Israeli basketball world.

With the pay-cut, the travel and not being able to play in the country they signed to play in and in front of fans, Maccabi will have a very hard time down the road in recruiting top level players that can compete in the Euroleague. There will always be foreign players who will want to play for Maccabi and for other Israeli teams, they will not be the cream of the crop and those who will be necessary to compete at the highest levels. That will not only be the case for Maccabi but for the other three teams as well as the rest of the league.

The war may have ramifications for years to come in the top professional league as well as those teams playing in continental competitions.

So far league play has been for the most part unsportsmanlike with teams coming into their games at such different levels from no imports to two to five and the results have been all over the map so to speak. There have been serious calls throughout all of the professional basketball leagues to freeze relegation across the board due to the situation that also sees some of the coaches in the Premier League and the second division Leumit League also serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

To date those calls have yet to be heeded.

This without a doubt creates an unfair advantage as the rules of the game in the Leumit, National League changed and they are not allowing any foreign players to play, just Israelis.

Yair Gewirtz, who is serving in the IDF reserves and who is also the head coach of second division Ma’ale Adumim division explained, “We worked very hard to recruit our foreign players this year. Then the league announced that there would be no foreign players in the lower divisions, but that Ligat Ha’al would still be allowed to have foreigners. For some teams that mattered more than others. For us, it completely decimated our depth and ability to create a big-man presence. We are getting destroyed in the post, both on the offensive and defensive side, and it is directly related to not having the full roster that we recruited, due to the war.”

“We do have good Israeli players, but they are mostly guards, and we were relying on our non-Israeli big men to make a playoff push this season. With them, I believe we are one of the better teams in the league. But, I understand that they wanted to level the playing field, so to speak, with the war and also have a season. I am all for that. But the league administration also has to understand the circumstances involving the teams. I am the head coach of a team, and I have been fighting with the IDF almost since Day 1 of the war. Other teams as well have been greatly affected by the war, while other teams much less so.”

Gewirtz is happy that the games are being played and that there is some sort of normalcy that is trying to be kept but ultimately the teams are being punished as well as the league with an uneven playing field.

“I have missed basically all my team’s practices and am coming straight from my army base to games when I can. I am glad that we are playing, and I think this is something also that helps the country in these times, but the competitiveness and sportsmanship throughout the league has been heavily altered due to the war, and I think the league should be addressing this as well.”

Yair’s father Danny Gewirtz was that much more straight and to the point, “Not only is it outrageous that the National League is behaving as if there isn’t a war going on, but it’s doubly outrageous that my son has to have one iota of worry that his team will be relegated when he should be 100% focused on his extremely dangerous reserve duty.”

Sports, just like any other realm in Israeli society will have to deal with these challenges not only in 2024 but well beyond as the ripple effect may be felt for the next decade to come.