Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat has approached State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss and asked him to launch an official inquiry into recent suspicions of irregularities in the Israel Football Association.
Last week it was revealed that the police were investigating suspicions suggesting the results of several Major League games were fixed by team owners linked to organized crime.
Livnat told the paper she asked Lindenstrauss to look into several things, including ethnics, public directors who serve in the Israel Football Association and the team ownership guidlines.
"The Football Association has a codex which states who can and cannot own of a soccer team. The question is – is it being enforced," she said.
- "The phenomenon of private team ownership, which is relatively new in Israeli sports, has become an opening for negative elements. It is believed that organized crime has infiltrated the soccer arena and the question is what can be done.
"I'm the one responsible, but ultimately, the police are the ones investigating criminal allegations… I hope we find there is nothing to these suspicions," she said.
Following the publication of the case, the Culture and Sports Ministry reissued its Code of Ethics for Sports in Israel.
Livnat said the code means to "create the proper, unified norms in Israeli sports, based on the ethics of sportsmanship, fairness, transparent and integrity – beyond the formal rules customary in sports."
The code, she stressed, includes two important articles: "The first bans any gambling by athletes, coaches, referees and managers in their respective disciplines; and the second bars conflict of interest by sports officials serving in several positions simultaneously – a problem we know taints Israeli sports."
Livnat added the Association for Sports Betting in Israel will also adopt the code.
As for those in Israeli sports who oppose cementing the code in legislation, as Livnat plans to do, the minister said that "It may be a generic code and things can be added to it, but we will not diminish from it and (the sports world) will have to abide by it – it will be a prerequisite for ministry funding… Teams will become financial dependent on it."
The ministry, she concluded, has no intention of compromising sports ethics.
Aryeh Melinek and Gidi Lipkin contributed to this report