Soccer owner turned Knesset wannabe,
Hapoel Beersheba went from being an underperforming team playing in a dilapidated stadium with troublesome fans, to being a model club with possibly the best supporters in the country. All because of one person – Alona Barkat.
Ashkelon-born Barkat, 49, however, didn’t only revitalize the once-failing club, she completely reinvented it.
“There was a lack of trust from the supporters, who no longer believed in the club,” Barkat told The Jerusalem Post in a 2017 interview of her first days in Beersheba. “After years of promises, our fans felt that it is very difficult to achieve success in the geographical periphery of Israel. They felt you can only be successful in the center of the country. We had to work in order to convince the fans that it is possible to succeed, even though it will take some time.”
The New Right is hoping that the pride Alona instilled in the fans and the city will translate into votes on April 9.
The wife of Eli Barkat – who made his initial fortune with brother and former Jerusalem mayor Nir as investors in IT security company Check Point – probably didn’t know what she was getting herself into in July 2007 when she finalized an agreement to purchase the club, then languishing in the second-tier National League.
A Tel Aviv resident, Barkat had little previous connection with Beersheba, and experienced few moments of joy in the city during her first six years as owner.
But after making practically every mistake in the book, her perseverance paid off when the club won its first Premier League championship in 40 years in 2016, and winning it again the next two seasons.
In 1952, Hapoel Beersheba was told that it could no longer play in the Israeli league due to the city’s distance from other centers of population coupled with the country’s poor transport infrastructure.
The team has seemingly played with a chip on its shoulder ever since, as if it always has something to prove.
The club first peaked under the guidance of Amatzia Levkovich in the mid-1970s, winning back-to-back championships in 1974/75 and 1975/76. It also has one State Cup triumph to its name, from 1997.
“We came here nine years ago and wanted to build a club that would bring pride to the Negev,” she said on stage during the celebrations in 2016 with an estimated 100,000 fans on hand.
Whether Barkat’s popularity among the team’s fans will transfer from the pitch to the ballot box is a tricky proposition. Success in sports and politics can diverge wildly. Some fans may see Barkat’s jump to politics as rejecting the team that she helped revitalize. Others will follow her to the ends of the Earth.
Either way, Barkat is now playing in a new game in a new league.
Allon Sinai contributed to this report.