Beitar Jerusalem: Pure, Unadulterated Stupidity

In late January 2013, Beitar Jerusalem were fourth in the Israeli Premier League and on a two-month unbeaten run. Then the club’s owner, Arcadi Gaydamak, arranged a mid-season trip to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, for what the team manager Eli Cohen could only describe as his boss’s “private business interests.”

The friendly against Terek Grozny ended goalless, one of three possible scores offered to Gaydamak by the Chechen despot Ramzan Kadyrov. The owner returned to Israel not with a business deal, but with two Chechen Muslim players: 19-year-old defender Dzhabrail Kadiyev and 23-year-old striker Zaur Sadayev. The decision would send the club spiralling into chaos.

Beitar won only one more match with them in the squad.

An Instrument of Propaganda

Arcadi Gaydamak, a convicted gun-trafficker, had no real interest in the sport. “Football is not a very fascinating sport,” he admitted. “I was never a fan.” He purchased Beitar in August 2005 and funded their league titles in 2007 and 2008 as a platform for a mayoral campaign in Jerusalem, viewing the club’s large fanbase as a “very interesting propaganda instrument.”

The campaign was a disaster. Gaydamak received just 3.6% of the vote and promptly lost interest in the club, whose fortunes on the pitch collapsed. The Chechen signings, however, marked a bizarre return to meddling. He knew the reaction would be “tempestuous.”

“Yes. That was the purpose,” he said. “It’s not because they are good footballers. I have no idea if they’re any good.” Gaydamak claimed he wanted to “expose Israeli society’s real face.”

The club’s most notorious fan group, La Familia, had long been exposing its own face, proudly declaring themselves “the most racist team in the country.” Numbering a reported 3,000, they occupied the East Stand of the Teddy Stadium, chanting “Death to all Arabs.” Their logic was simple: all Muslims were Arabs, and Beitar, uniquely in the Israeli league, had never signed an Arab player. The arrival of Kadiyev and Sadayev was seen as a profound betrayal.

A War Inside a Club

“Has a war started?” wondered chairman Itzik Korenfine as his phone “went mad” after the transfers were announced. Korenfine, a former title-winning goalkeeper and club legend, found himself a target. He required a level of security protection usually reserved for government ministers after condemning the fans’ racism. “People stood two metres away and told me ‘We will rape your daughter.’ They said it to my face,” he recalled.

The players were caught in the middle. Club captain Ariel Harush was mobbed and insulted by his own supporters after diplomatically asking them to accept the new signings. “Why is everybody so against me now?” he asked. Dario Fernandez, an Argentine midfielder, was baffled by the racism. “It’s Jewish people, all their life they have had that problem,” he said. “The only players to fight against the fans was me and Ariel Harush. The others did nothing.”

One of those who did nothing was Ofir Kriaf. His brother, Oshri, was a member of La Familia. When Kadiyev made his debut, coming on for Kriaf, the midfielder “forgot” to shake the teenager’s hand. The symbolism was lost on no one. When Sadayev scored his first and only goal for the club, a section of Beitar fans simply walked out of the stadium in protest.

Just days after Beitar’s museum caretaker, Meir Harush, stated he would proudly hang a shirt from one of the Chechen players in the collection, the museum was destroyed by arsonists. Two Beitar fans in their twenties later pled guilty.

The Price of Betrayal

With La Familia boycotting home games, attendances dwindled. The team’s form disintegrated, dragging them into a relegation battle. A banner in the near-empty stadium read: “The price of betrayal.” For the final, crucial match away at Arab club Bnei Sakhnin, the fans returned. Beitar secured a draw, and their league survival.

It was Sadayev’s last contribution, and not a positive one. He was sent off for a wild challenge. After the final whistle, he and Kadiyev were taken directly to the airport. “Goodbye… forever,” Sadayev said.

Gaydamak claimed he gave the club away for free. In 2015, he began a three-year prison sentence in France for money-laundering. Korenfine was fired by the new owner, Eli Tabib. Ariel Harush, the fans’ player of the year in 2013/14 despite being disowned by La Familia, eventually left for Beitar’s rivals, Hapoel Tel Aviv. Kriaf, meanwhile, was rewarded for his stance by being made the youngest captain in the club’s history.

In response to the events, moderate fans established an alternative club, Beitar Nordia Jerusalem, which now includes two Arab-Israeli players. Its volunteer chairman, Itsek Alfasi, had a simple question for the thousands of fans who claimed to oppose La Familia but did nothing. “All those who claimed they’re not racists and are against La Familia, where are they?”