Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem F.C.
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| Full name |
Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem F.C. מועדון כדורגל הפועל קטמון ירושלים |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Katamon |
| Founded | 2007 (as Hapoel Katamon/Mevasseret Zion), 2009 (as Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem) |
| Ground | Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem |
| Capacity | 34,000 |
| Owner | Voluntary association "Katamon- fans club" |
| Chairman | Uri Sheratzky |
| Manager | Benny Ben Zaken |
| League | Liga Leumit |
| 2015–16 | Liga Leumit, 4th |
| Website | Club home page |
Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem F.C. (Hebrew: הפועל קטמון ירושלים) is an Israeli fan-owned association football club in Jerusalem, Israel. It was conceived and founded in 2007 by Hapoel Jerusalem fans unhappy with the team's management. The club currently plays in Liga Leumit and is based at Teddy Stadium. At its founding, Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem became the first fan-owned football club in Israel.
Football club Hapoel Jerusalem was founded in 1926. The team belonged to the "Histadrut", Israel's organization of workers unions, and represented Socialist values. In 1957, the team advanced for the first time to the top Israeli league. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the years known as the "golden era" of the team, " Hapoel" outperformed and outnumbered in spectators city rivals Beitar Jerusalem – a team associated with the right-leaning "revisionist" movement. The most important achievement in the history of the club was winning the Israel State Cup in 1973.
Since the 1980s, "Hapoel" has lost its lead to Beitar Jerusalem. The team spent the 1980s and 1990s swinging between the 1st and 2nd leagues. Eventually, it was purchased by businessman Yosi Sassi in 1993, who appointed his friend, Victor Yona, as chairman. Since the late 1990s, the two got into various disputes and legal proceedings, and the team changed hands back and forth between the two.
After the 2006–07 season, in which the team dropped for the second time to the 3rd league, and after years of searching for someone to buy Hapoel Jerusalem, disenchanted fans, extremely dissatisfied with the management, resolved to create a company with the aim of purchasing the club. When it became evident that reaching such a deal was impossible, they decided to start an alternative team. The group, led by journalist Uri Sheradski and supported by then future mayor Nir Barkat, bought Hapoel Mevasseret Zion/Abu Ghosh (which was founded in 2004 by a merger of two clubs from Abu Ghosh and Mevasseret Zion), and renamed it "Hapoel Katamon/Mevasseret Zion". The new name was taken from Katamon, a neighborhood of Jerusalem where Hapoel Jerusalem played from 1954 until moving to the YMCA Stadium and later on to the Teddy Stadium in the early 1990s. The first game was played October 19, 2007, to a crowd of 3,000; Hapoel Katamon won Hapoel Nahalat Yehuda 2–1.
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