"A Dangerous Precedent": Hapoel Tel Aviv Outlines Its Appeal

Hapoel Tel Aviv has completed its arguments, saying, "The decision creates extreme consequences." Sports 5 Published: 10.06.26, 21:16 (Alen Shiber) | Photo: Sports 5

The saga surrounding the first game between Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem is not over yet, as the Tel Aviv club has appealed after the court ruled that the game must be resumed from a 0-0 score, and not award Hapoel Jerusalem a technical loss. On Wednesday evening, Hapoel Tel Aviv published the main points of its appeal.

In the document sent by Hapoel Tel Aviv, it says, among other things: "Section 22 of the disciplinary regulations states that the punishment for a team that does not appear for a game is a technical loss, but the court may, in special circumstances, order a replay," it said. "In our case there are no `special circumstances` in the regulatory sense that justify deviation from the rule of a technical loss. The trigger for the event that caused the game not to be resumed was Hapoel Jerusalem's refusal to return to the court."

The team further said: "Moreover, if those `special circumstances` are the security situation itself, this does not align with the court's own findings, according to which in recent years we have been living in an ongoing security reality, and the teams and the association are required to act according to Home Front Command guidelines as part of routine activity. If this is the state of affairs, then in any case this is not a `special` circumstance, in the sense that justifies deviation from the regulations. And if the special circumstances are not the security situation, then the ruling does not reveal what those special circumstances are, and in any case it does not provide a sufficient basis for deviation from the prescribed regulatory outcome."

"The court erred in relying on the Holon case," the team continued, laying out its arguments. "In that case it was determined that `in this case there was a real contribution by Gilboa to the occurrence`, and hence the decision to hold a replay. That case is not similar to ours, since Hapoel Tel Aviv had no contribution whatsoever to the occurrence. Hapoel Jerusalem is the only party that was charged and convicted, yet Hapoel Tel Aviv `won` the punishment."

The team continued: "The circumstances in our case are not logistical and external circumstances for which a replay should be ordered, but rather, as the disciplinary court determined, circumstances that unfortunately are frequent in the State of Israel."

"The difficulty is not only local but systemic, the decision creates extreme consequences and undermines the status of the officiating crews and the authorized bodies," it said. "Most seriously, it sends the message that even when a team refuses to resume a game, it will be possible to bypass the regulatory result through retroactive claims. Such a precedent may open a dangerous door for any team, in circumstances convenient to it, to seek to justify not resuming a game under one pretext or another. A replay is not a neutral solution, but an actual erasure of a sporting advantage. The ruling gives it another chance and imposes the cost דווקא on the team that acted in accordance with the instructions."

In conclusion it said: "As for that `mitigating side` to which the court referred, it too was not defined, not explained and not anchored in the regulations. By contrast, the so-called `strict side` is clear: the regulations set a clear result of a technical loss. Deviation without any real justification, and without identifying genuine special circumstances, is not a proportional leniency but a direct injury to the principle of legality, the principle of equality and the professionalism of the sport. Failure to comply with the regulations in clear-cut cases of this kind may turn competitive basketball from a professional framework governed by clear rules into a framework in which results are no longer decided by law and the game, but by changing and unpredictable considerations."

Israeli Basketball Premier League