The sports fan organization "Shabbat and Soccer for All" is joining recent public outrage against the sports authorities, beginning with the Sports Minister and down to the police officers keeping order at games and arresting fans between matches.
The organization has made it their goal to fight the exclusion of religious fans from the games.
"For a long time we have been boasting that only Shabbat can unite all the fans," the heads of the organization wrote in their announcement. "We were wrong - the management has proved to us that it too can unite all the fans against her with its rudeness, opacity and arrogance."
According to the leaders of the organization, "The same opacity that promotes the exclusion of half of Israel's children and their families when it pushes for games on Shabbat is the same opacity that closes stands as a collective punishment against fans. The opacity that publishes campaigns to return families to the stadiums on Shabbat while ignoring Shabbat-observing families is the same opacity that campaigned against violence while branding all fans as violent."
"The arrogance that responded to us that those who observe Shabbat will choose what is more important to them, as if football belongs to them is the same arrogance that allows the police to treat all fans as criminals and use horses, invasive tests and delusional prohibitions such as forbidding bringing water into the stadium. We've been saying for years that those who manage football don't really see us as Shabbath-observant."
It should be noted that the heads of the organization are not only busy fighting against games on Shabbat, but have proposed an outline in which more games will be held at convenient times for families. However, according to them, the league directorate did not respond at all and did not examine the proposal.
"It turns out we were wrong, they don't see all the fans. The sport belongs to the fans, Shabbat and soccer are for everyone."