About Us
We are the first fan-owned club in Israel, proudly bearing the historical name of Hapoel Jerusalem – founded in 1926. For the purpose of revitalizing the club, securing its future, establishing and expanding its professional sporting activity, as well as its social ones - we established a non-profit organization. It numbers about a thousand members, who are the owners of the club, and democratically manage its day-to-day life.
You can learn about our dramatic, turbulent and pioneering history in the "History" section of this website. But above all, we put into practice the motto "Football belongs to the fans". For us, being fans is a more complex and significant matter than merely coming to games and supporting the players. Support requires taking a share in ownership, assisting in the operation of the club, volunteering in its social activities, and promoting the positive impact that we strive to have on sports culture, at the city and national level.
At the top of our pyramid - a healthy and stable senior men’s team. It is headed by sporting director Shay Aharon, who is in his 12th year in the role, together with coach Ziv Aryeh, for the seventh consecutive season at the club - the longest-serving coach in Israeli football. This is not incidental: we believe in systemic stability and continuity, not as a slogan but as an essential element in maintaining a healthy system.
After 21 years' absence, Hapoel Jerusalem returned to the top division in Israel. We finished our second season in the Premier League in fourth place, our highest finish since 1977-78. Since then, the club has continued to grow as a rising and optimistic force in Israeli football, and a dominant one locally.
With modest resources, we have built a team that maintains its place in the Premier League and battles for participation in the upper playoffs, while building on solid homegrown foundations - young players who make up the youngest team in the league. Our players have begun to be regulars in Israel's national youth teams. Following their success, Hapoel players have been sold in record deals in the club's history - something that guarantees a professional-economic horizon for the system.
In the following 2023-24 season, the team continued its growth as an optimistic and rising force in Israeli football, and a dominant one in Jerusalem. This, while renewing the squad and basing it on solid home-grown foundations, with Agvadish, Melamud, Ferede and Zoabi, together with captain Awaka Eshata, leading the young team in the Premier League.
We have a uniform ticket price for all home games and invite boys and girls under the age of 8 to attend most of the games for free. We operate a football academy, which cultivates exceptional talents in boarding school conditions. Further down the ages you will find our soccer school, which is unrivalled in the area, and at the urban level you will discover the "Neighborhood League", a groundbreaking project that has become a Jerusalem institution, which you can also read about in detail in the "Social Activities" section of the website. And there is more. Much more.
Because apart from professional football, we maintain, initiate and subsidize a wide range of social projects, managed by the fans themselves. Briefly, we mention here the activity of the "unified teams", where people with and without disabilities play together, and the "Kiryat Yearim" project, for teenagers who require special attention. For these and other activities, in August 2022 we were awarded two badges of honor from the President of Israel, at the annual ceremony of Premier League teams.
Football is often a platform for violent, racist and intolerant behavior. We know it well in our city. We have set out to be a proud alternative, and do it differently, but completely. Our journey has just begun, join us.
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