List of Israeli football champions

A black-and-white photograph of an association football team. A row of eight men stands at the rear, six in dark-coloured soccer jerseys with a light stripe horizontal across the centre, and one on each end in dark-coloured suits. In front of them sit eight more players. In the background a tall floodlight and two grandstands can be seen.
In terms of titles won, Maccabi Tel Aviv are Israel's most successful club. The Maccabi squad of 1939 is pictured at Sydney Cricket Ground during a tour of Australia.

The association football champions of Israel are the winners of the highest league in Israeli football, which is currently the Israeli Premier League. The league is contested on a round robin basis and the championship awarded to the team that is top of the league at the end of the season. Having won the 2023–24 competition, Maccabi Tel Aviv are the current champions.

Following the creation of the Eretz Israel Football Association in August 1928,[1] the first nationwide football championship in Mandatory Palestine, the Palestine League, began in October 1930, although this competition was abandoned.[2] The Palestine League's last edition was played during the 1947–48 season, and was abandoned as well due to the Independence War. The league resumed in May 1949 and since then the national championship has been played under three names: Liga Alef, between 1949 and 1955; Liga Leumit, from 1955 to 1999; and finally, since 1999, the Israeli Premier League.

In all, Maccabi Tel Aviv hold the record for most championships, with 25 titles; they are also the only Israeli club to have never been relegated from the top division.[3][4] The next most successful teams are Maccabi Haifa (15 titles) and Hapoel Tel Aviv (11), followed by Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Petah Tikva six titles each. While Maccabi and Hapoel Tel Aviv have always been major players in the league championship, the consistent success of Maccabi Haifa and Beitar Jerusalem has been a relatively recent phenomenon, both clubs having won their first title during the 1980s. The longest run of successive titles is five, won by Hapoel Petah Tikva between the 1958–59 and 1962–63 seasons.[5]

  1. ^ Kaufman, Haim; Galily, Yair (January 2008). "The early development of Hebrew football in Eretz Israel, 1910–1928" (PDF). Soccer & Society. 9 (1). Israel Football Association: 11. doi:10.1080/14660970701616779. S2CID 145680671. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 May 2013. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  2. ^ Rabl, Eran (2022). ליגת ההתאחדות לכדורגל בתקופת המנדט הבריטי 1930-1948 [The FA Football League During the British Mandate 1930-1948] (PDF) (in Hebrew). Nof HaGalil.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ "About the Club". Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C. Archived from the original on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 19 August 2011.
  4. ^ Stokkermans, Karel (21 April 2011). "Coventric!". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference bleicherMay2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).