Injury time ruling saves Shabbat soccer

ISRAELI FOOTBALL was almost shut down last weekend following a battle over the legality of playing on Shabbat.

At the last moment, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein supplied the Israeli FA with a legal opinion that there was no need to enforce the labour law in the arena of professional football because matches had been always held on Shabbat and therefore the status quo could remain.

What began as a wage dispute in one of the lower leagues had led to a court ruling that professional matches held on Shabbat were in contravention of the law prohibiting companies from making their employees work on their religious day of rest.

Many businesses either disregard this law or, in the case of large companies, have a special exemption signed by the economics minister.

However, the current Minister of the Economy, Shas leader Arye Deri, is against such an exemption and has been trying to find a way to remove sport altogether from Shabbat.

This, of course, caused an outcry from Israel’s sporting associations, which claimed that such a move would break their television rights deals.

In the end, the attorney-general stepped in and President Reuven Rivlin, a massive football fan, said: “On Shabbat we go to synagogue in the morning and then to Teddy or Katamon [Jerusalem football grounds] to see football.”