Prior to the Champions Cup match this Saturday night at 20:50 against Kiryat Shemona, Maccabi Tel Aviv received the "Shield of Honor" Award from Israel President, Reuven Rivlin
This morning Maccabi Tel Aviv received the "Shield of Honor" Award from Israel President Reuven Rivlin at the President's residence in Jerusalem along with the entire team, professional staff and club executives.
The ceremony was also attended by Minhelet HaLiga Chairman Yoram Bauman, Minhelet CEO Oren Hason, Israel Football Association CEO Rotem Kamer, Chariperson of the Violence Prevention Committee retired Judge Edna Bekenstein and Toto CEO Itshak Lary. Also present were representatives of all 14 teams in the Ligat Ha'Al.
Maccabi Tel Aviv has been fighting against racism in and around football stadiums throughout Israel and has worked in conjunction with the supporters as well as the "Achim LaSemel" organization and has participated in campaigns hilighting the fight against violence.
Martin Bain, the club's CEO accepted the "Shield of Honor" award from the Israel President Reuven Rivlin and said: "Firstly, I'm very happy to receive the "Shield of Honor" award and I'm happy that we are the first club to receive it. Fighting violence in sports is a big commitment for us and an award such as this was presented to us after hard work by the government, the leaders, the football clubs and also the supporters. I believe that Maccabi has made a lot of progress with these challenges as it's not an easy issue that is being dealt with across the world. I'm very proud of what Maccabi Tel Aviv does in the war against violence. We are working on this in a number of areas including fighting racism and violence in the stadiums with the Israeli public and also through international organizations such as UNICEF. We will continue to work hard and serve as an example and model for everyone. When the majority of supporters understand that everyone has to fight against violence and racism then others follow suit. Our supporters have been working hard at self-policing themselves in the stands and that needs to continue. In the name of Maccabi Tel Aviv and the club's supporters we want to thank you for the presentation of this award."
Maccabi Tel Aviv Sporting Director Jordi Cruyff spoke about how important the award is to the Yellow-and-Blue:
“Sometimes a trophy like this is more important than the ones won on the field as this is for social issues. I do think we should be proud of this trophy because we showed determination. This is not a final step but we should take this as an encouragement to try and keep improving and continue to eradicate all kinds of violent behavior because this is not what Maccabi stands for. We have to continue to work hard on this.
There’s a plan to work on this locally, nationally and internationally as UNICEF helps us a lot in this area to show that this is what we want to do. When players come to Maccabi Tel Aviv they know that they are not just valued for what they can do on the field, during training and scoring goals but we value their social behavior and social skills. We take every opportunity to send our players to hospitals and to places like Jaffa to show how different cultures can mix. Maccabi shows that we are a club that is multi-cultural and very tolerant with different cultures together and to eliminate all kinds of violent behavior against color, religion or anything else.
