Betar Jerusalem has attracted a lot of interest recently in light of the saga of the deal with Sheikh Hamed bin Khalifa from the United Arab Emirates. While Betar is still waiting for the certificate of integrity and the new funds, it is worth examining what is happening at the club financially alongside behind-the-scenes actions. All the hustle and bustle of the crazy season in the face of the Corona virus.
The club’s budget did not change during the last transfer window and is on the order of NIS 45 million. This is the budget that Moshe Hogg celebrated at the beginning of the season when he announced that the team was going to reduce the amount. The budget a year earlier, as mentioned, reached NIS 80 million .
So what actions were taken at the club that changed the budget? In the summer, Levy Garcia and Freddie Floman were sold, two foreigners who held high salaries (Garcia over 300,000 euros). In their place came young players as a long-term investment, such as Glaofilo Hasselbaink, Santiago Occupos and Theocene. After the big purchases the owner made a year ago with Garcia, Ali Muhammad, Gadi Kinda and Michael Ohana, the trend has shifted to much more modest acquisitions that have cut the budget, and we must not forget the 30% cut in players’ salaries last summer.
Now that Marko Jankovic (with a salary of 350,000 euros per season) and Nicholas Olsk have arrived, the club at least released during the winter window from the salaries of Liran Rotman and Shalom Edri. On the other hand, the biggest positive impact financially was Antoine Conte’s letter of cessation, which earned about 300,000 euros, and now Betar stops paying him. Also, Diego Vardska was frozen and will receive the money promised to him, so the status quo remains in his sector, To maintain the NIS 8 million safety net that flows into the group.
Basically, Betar has brought in players who are supposed to upgrade it. Ulsk expect to improve the link-up and return to collaborating with Muhammad and the coaching staff he knows as he was in Netanya. And what about his followers? If he has half the talent at Betar they think he has and he will get into things properly, the team of Slobodan Drapic and Shai Barda can become very attractive, also taking into account Michael Ohana, Idan Vered, Eliran Atar, Yarden Shua and of course Aviel Zargari, the promising talent.
The problem that Betar will probably have to deal with is in the center of defense. Two foreign brakes left and no one arrived. Uriel Degani, Or Zehavi and the experienced veteran Tal Ben Haim will have to carry the team until the end of the season. We’ll wait and see if that will be enough.
