Toto Cup
 |
|
| Country |
 Israel
|
|---|---|
| Confederation | UEFA (Europe) |
| First season | 1984 |
| Number of teams | 30 (14 participants in Al, 16 in Leumit) |
| Current champions |
Hapoel Beer Sheva (2016–17 Al) Hapoel Ashkelon (2015–16 Leumit) |
| Most championships |
Hapoel Petah Tikva Maccabi Haifa Maccabi Tel Aviv (4 cups each) |
| Website | |
The Toto Cup (Hebrew: גביע הטוטו, Gvia HaToto) is an association football tournament that exists separately in the two highest divisions in Israel: the Premier League and Liga Leumit.
From 1999 to 2009, the Toto Cup tournament was also held for the third division which was later canceled due to the cancellation of Liga Artzit.
The Toto Cup is the third important competition in Israeli football after the Israeli Premier League and the Israeli State Cup and is considered as a negligible cup, and therefore the Israeli football teams are not investing in many of its games and uses the game to test the foreign players and to give a chance to the bench players and the youth players. However, the Israeli Sports Betting Council pays 1.25 million NIS for the winner, while the runner-up receive 950,000 NIS.
League cups, in different formats, were played in Israel irregularly since the 1950s. In 1958, 1968 and 1973, anniversary cups, celebrating the 10th, 20th and 25th anniversary of independence of Israel, were played as a league cup competition, by Liga Leumit and Liga Alef clubs separately. In 1975–76 a League Cup competition was played, won by Hapoel Hadera (in Liga Leumit) and Maccabi Ramat Amidar (in Liga Alef), but the competition wasn't played again in the following seasons.
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