Pages

Israeli Cup final descends into chaos

The tight affair between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv was forced into extra time with the scores locked at one apiece. Maccabi then nicked a goal and bedded themselves in as they looked to repel everything their opponents could throw at them. In the 115th minute however, the dam broke, with Hapoel flooding forward to equalise, sparking incredible scenes of mass celebrations. Those celebrations would soon change in tone however, when the referee received word from the VAR officials that there may have been a foul in the build-up.
The chaos began from the moment the unfortunate referee signaled his intention to check the VAR monitor, with players and staff absolutely losing it. At this point he is yet to even rule out the goal but it takes him an age to get anywhere near the monitor due to the road block of fuming players and staff. When he did get there, he had dozens of people wrestling to get a view of the monitor, screaming and shouting all sorts of unpleasantries in his direction. It would then get worse when the ref decided that there had in fact been a clear foul in the build-up and ruled out the goal. The shackles came exploding off as all hell broke loose. Red cards were a dime a dozen, water bottles were flying, and even the most obscure of staff members were seen pushing and shoving the referee. Once the game was eventually restarted, Maccabi would go on to claim glory, holding onto their lead for the few remaining minutes.