Tycoon’s wife who changed Hapoel’s fortunes
ALONA BARKAT married well. As the wife of an Israeli hi-tech billionaire, she has the funds to fulfil her dreams. Curiously, it is in the male-dominated world of football that she is making her mark.
As the owner of Hapoel Be’erSheva, the team plotting to oust Celtic from the Champions League, Barkat has added a feminine touch to Israel’s league champions but when the chips are down she can be as ruthless as Roman Abramovich.
A female owner is very rare in the football world and Barkat is unique. Unlike Katharina Liebherr at Southampton and Margharita Louis-Dreyfus at Marseille, the two most prominent female club owners in Europe who inherited valuable financial assets from their father and husband respectively, Barkat has been a huge football fan since childhood and went out specifically to buy a club.
Yet few men can boast achieving the kind of dramatic turnaround brought about by Barkat at Hapoel Be’er-Sheva.
In 2007, she bought a club, ailing financially and languishing in Israel’s second tier, for $1.8million. Within two years, Be’er-Sheva had won promotion to the top flight, and last season the club won its first Premier League title since 1976.
She is adored in the city of Be’er-Sheva as a modern-day Moses who has led the club out of 40 years in the wilderness.
‘Since I was a girl, I’ve always been interested in boys’ things like motor racing,’ she said. ‘I also developed an interest in football. I had been involved in philanthropy and what better way to promote educational values and bring about social change than through football.’
In multicultural Israel, she is also eager to promote equality of opportunity.
‘There is no place for racism nor intolerance in football,’ she insisted. ‘Our team has Jews, Arabs, Christians and we sign players according to merit — not their ethnic or religious background.
‘We are part of the community and have programmes for 600 youths, including ones for Bedouin and Ethiopian immigrants. Through Hapoel Be’er-Sheva, we can give back to society.’
Be’er-Sheva’s fans did not immediately take to Barkat. Aside from being a woman, she was seen as a wealthy north Tel Aviv intruder and it took several seasons and promotion before she gained their respect.
Petite and unassuming, the 46-year-old was raised in a working-class, religious family in Ashkelon in southern Israel and met her husband, Eli, at the Hebrew University where she received a BA and MA in Middle East Studies. They have three children. Eli Barkat is the brother of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who is tipped by many as the person most likely to succeed Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s Prime Minister.
Barkat insists that she faces no sexist prejudices in Israeli football.
‘To tell the truth, I don’t feel any difference in the way people relate to me. If at first, wherever I came there were a few raised eyebrows, now it seems natural.
‘I get a lot of respect. I’m judged by results and the fact that I’m a woman is no longer an issue. Maybe the tone changes slightly when I come into a room. I try not to swear. Maybe people feel they have to discuss matters in a different way when I’m around but you’d have to ask them.’
Barkat has also earned respect from the fans because she is a hands-on owner with steely behaviour beneath her feminine manner. She makes a point of phoning each of her players on their birthdays but she can be as ruthless as Abramovich when it is required.
After a second-place finish under Elisha Levy in 2013/2014, the team managed only third the following season. She fired Levy, even though the club had reached the cup final, a week before the showpiece match.
‘It’s not something I like to talk about,’ she said. ‘But I felt we were missing something under Elisha.’
Last summer, she appointed Barak Bakhar after he took unfancied Hapoel Kiryat Shmona to second place in 2014/2015. The gamble on Bakhar paid off.
Bakhar tightened the defence and built a more disciplined, organised unit around a blend of stars like former Genk striker Elyaniv Barda and Chelsea striker Ben Sahar, imported players like Nigerian midfielder John Ogu and homegrown youth team talent including defender Ofir Davidzada. The opening of a new 16,100 stadium, owned by the municipality and sold out for every game, has also boosted the team.
Despite her wealth, Barkat runs a tight ship. Be’er Sheva’s budget last season was $13m — the fifth largest budget in Israel’s Premier League and well short of the $40m of Maccabi Tel Aviv, who had won the Israeli league for the three seasons preceding 2015/16.
‘We always believed we might one day be the best team in Israel, even when we were in the second division,’ said Barkat. ‘When you aspire to excellence, you don’t want to finish second. Now the target is a good run in Europe.’ Having overcome Greek champions Olympiakos in the last round, the team with the highest co-efficient in the Champions Route of the Champions League, Barkat’s Be’er Sheva will be brimming with confidence when they travel to Glasgow.