The Football Association’s prosecutor, Adv. Nir Reshef, will file an indictment on Sunday against the ten players involved in the Haifa derby events, and against Hapoel Haifa fitness coach Danny Bibbs and Maccabi Haifa general manager Assaf Ben Dov. All involved will stand trial on Wednesday.
The main evidence before the tribunal will be Judge Liran Liani’s report, which recorded what the TV cameras did not see in the locker room hallway. The detailed judgment.
According to estimates, San Menachem will snatch the most severe punishment from Maccabi Haifa players and will be sent off for at least four games, since the refereeing report states that the mass brawl began after his defiance. Mann, the Hapoel Haifa pioneers, will also receive a severe penalty in the form of a ban from at least three games.
The others involved, including Bogdan Planic and Dor Malul, will be removed for a shorter period, while Bibbs and Ben Dov will also be convicted, removed and fined. Also, according to the same estimates, the teams will be fined and sentenced to a reduction of conditional points for the sake of seeing and being seen.
The Legal Department is awaiting the decision of the head of the disciplinary tribunal, Israel Shimoni, regarding who will sit in the hearing. Since this is not a prosecution of the members of the association’s management, which requires a sitting of two judges, it seems that Shimoni himself will sit alone in the hearing, unless he thinks it is an extraordinary event that requires another judge.
The legal department looks at the incident in a similar way as they treated the case in which Predrag Rajkovic pushed Yossi Aboksis in the game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Bnei Sakhnin, and not like in the difficult riots in 2012 between Hapoel Ramat Gan and Bnei Lod or in the riots between Maccabi Petah Tikva and Hapoel Haifa.
