Liga Bet

Liga Bet (Hebrew: 'ליגה ב) is the fifth tier of the Israeli football league system. Its name translates as "B League".

History

League football started in Israel in 1949-50, a year after independence. However, the financial and security crises gripping the young nation caused the 1950-1 season to be abandoned before it had started. When football resumed in 1951-2, the new top division went by the name of Liga Alef with Liga Bet as the second division. The 1952-3 season was also not played, and Liga Bet resumed in 1953-4.

The following season, Liga Leumit came into existence as the new top division, with Liga Alef becoming the second division and Liga Bet demoted to the third division. In the summer of 1974, restructuring saw the creation of Liga Artzit as a new second tier, and the second demotion of Liga Bet, as it became the fourth division. Further restructuring to create the Israeli Premier League in the summer of 1999 saw Liga Bet demoted again, this time to the fifth tier, the position it holds today.

tructure

Today, Liga Bet is split into four regional divisions, North A, North B, South A and South B. Because Israel's northern half is much more densely populated than the desert south, the divisions are not spread equally and the southernmost division, South B, covers about two-thirds of the country. Although this inequality is partially offset by the fact that there are so few clubs south of Be'er Sheva (Arad, Dimona, Yeroham, Mitzpe Ramon and Eilat are the only sizable towns south of the city, and currently only MS Dimona are in Liga Bet), the northern clubs tend to be clustered in the Galilee region, making travel to away matches much less of a chore.

Each division has sixteen clubs, who play each other home and away to make a 30-game season. The club finishing top of each regional division is promoted to Liga Alef. The bottom two from each division are relegated to Liga Gimel, the sixth and bottom tier, though at least one club is usually reprieved as there are a maximum of seven clubs from Liga Gimel eligible for promotion (i.e. the champion of each of the seven regional divisions) and many do not meet the promotion criteria. Coming into Liga Bet are the two clubs are relegated from each of the regional Liga Alefs and the seven clubs promoted from Liga Gimel, assuming they meet the promotion criteria. The clubs are then pooled and assigned to the most geographically appropriate of the four divisions.

Current members

¹ Only 15 teams competed in the season 2001-2 and second-bottom Hapoel Bnei Manda were excused from relegation as numbers were made up.

² Hapoel Sakhnin finished bottom but were not demoted.

³ Beitar Acre finished bottom but were not demoted.

⁴ Season played with only 15 teams.

⁵ Hapoel Dir Hana finished in the relegation zone but were not demoted as both teams relegated from the northern division of Liga Alef folded.

⁶ Maccabi Ma'alot finished bottom but were not relegated.

North B

¹ Hapoel Aliyah Kfar Saba finished in the relegation zone but were not demoted.

² Tzairi Rahat and Maccabi Yehud finished in the relegation zone but were not demoted.

³ Bnei Lakhish finished in the relegation zone but were not demoted.

⁴ Hapoel Arad were also promoted due to Tzafririm Holon's relegation.

External links

* [http://football.org.il/Leagues/Pages/LeagueDetails.aspx?LEAGUE_ID=10071 Liga Bet North A] Israel Football Association he icon
* [http://football.org.il/Leagues/Pages/LeagueDetails.aspx?LEAGUE_ID=10072 Liga Bet North B] Israel Football Association he icon
* [http://football.org.il/Leagues/Pages/LeagueDetails.aspx?LEAGUE_ID=10073 Liga Bet South A] Israel Football Association he icon
* [http://football.org.il/Leagues/Pages/LeagueDetails.aspx?LEAGUE_ID=10074 Liga Bet South B] Israel Football Association he icon