Nir Reshef, an attorney for the Israeli soccer association, has decided not to overlook the behavior of some of the fans of Arab soccer team Maccabi Ahi Nazareth F.C. who booed during the minute of silence in memory of Israel’s 9th president, Shimon Peres, and sue their team, Israeli’s sports Channel 5 reported.
The game was a derby between the Arab team and its neighbor from the nearby Jewish Nazareth Illit.
The charge will likely be fan misconduct, an item that was added to the association’s rule book in 2007, when fans of Beitar Jerusalem booed during a minute of silence in memory of the late Yitzhak Rabin.
The Jerusalem team was punished at the time with two games that were played in an empty stadium, without fans, by a court of three judges, one of whom ruled against punishing the team arguing the fans had exercised their right to free speech. The team appealed to the Supreme Court which sided with the lower panel’s minority vote and revoked the punishment. As a result, the national soccer association amended its rules to include a prohibition on fan misconduct.
This time, when Maccabi Ahi Nazareth F.C. appeals to the high court, arguing for its fans’ right to free speech, as well as the fact that it cannot be assigned vicarious liability for fan behavior, the league can point to the rule book as a binding document.
Soccer association officials have told Channel 5 that “Ahi Nazareth must be punished severely,” pointing out that this most recent behavior took place during the week of the late president’s death, while the Jerusalem incident took place 12 years after Rabin’s murder.