The Jerusalem Post

Miri Regev to ex- soccer star: Apologize to Likud or don’t coach

- • By TAMAR BEERI Maariv, the sister publicatio­n of The Jerusalem Post, contribute­d to this report.

Transporta­tion Minister Miri Regev sent shock waves throughout Israel on Friday night when she was interviewe­d on the weekly program Ofira and Berkovic on N12, where she told Eyal Berkovic, a cohost of the show and former Israeli soccer star, that if he does not apologize to the Likud Party, he will never be the coach for the Israeli national soccer team.

The apology, which Regev finds is necessary, is for a comment he made the previous week in which he said that members of Knesset from the Likud Party, headed by Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the party which Regev is a member of, have been behaving like a “criminal organizati­on” in their handling of the coronaviru­s crisis.

He claimed that they did not respect the profession­al judgment of the Health Ministry, in particular that of coronaviru­s commission­er Prof. Ronni Gamzu.

Berkovic had made the comment about the Likud during an interview the previous week with Coalition chairman Miki Zohar.

“As long as you do not apologize to the Likudniks, you will never be the coach of the Israeli national team, I’m telling you,” Regev said.

“There’s no chance,” Berkovic, known in Israel as “Berko” for short, said.

Regev continued, explaining that she is waiting “for you to apologize to a million and a half Likudniks who you called members of a criminal organizati­on, just like Dudu Topaz ( Israeli television personalit­y) called us riffraff and like others called us mezuzah- kissers.”

Berkovic responded, “I was only referring to you and your whole crew, a bunch of suckups.”

Regev announced at the top of her voice that she and other

Likud supporters are proud that the person running the country is Netanyahu, to which Berkovic responded, “You are proud, I’m not proud anymore.”

“You flip over like a steak,” Regev responded, claiming that Berkovic’s opinion changes regularly. “One day, it’s [ Moshe] Kahlon, one day it’s [ Alternate Prime Minister Benny] Gantz. You made Gantz into a messiah, but where is your messiah? Where are you, you steak? You always flip over, now it’s [ MK Naftali] Bennett, come on, stop it.”

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