The strange Italian sponsors of the Israeli Premier League From Lotto to Legea, from diadora to Givova, via Zeus and FILA
The Israeli Premier League is certainly not one that lives in the spotlight, but on rare occasions like last night's surprise victory of Maccabi Haifa in the Champions League against Juventus, here is where even the minor leagues gain new interest. And the Israeli league can count on many peculiarities, among which the one that absolutely stands out, at least to our eye is the massive presence of Italian technical sponsors that we do not always see in Serie A. Historical names of ours, from Lotto to diadora, from Givova to Legea, have made some of the kits of the teams present in the top league played in Israel.
The Israeli Premier League was founded in 1999 - a few years after the English one-replacing Liga Leumit, which became the second division and tried to imitate the big European leagues. Hence the wide variety of technical sponsors called in to make the playing kits of the various teams, as many as 11 for 16 teams, recovering some names we no longer see often on our football fields.
Bnei Sakhnin - Givova
Finally, Lotto, which with no less than three sponsored teams is the most active brand in the Israeli Premier League, completes the large group of Italian companies present. While in Serie A the logo with the two overlapping pitches is present only on the jersey of newly promoted Monza, here instead we find it on the suits of Hapoel Hadera, Maccabi Netanya and Sektzia Ness Ziona. A success that testifies to the good work done by the Italian brand and how vital even smaller markets are in the economy of sports brands that are not Nike, adidas or Puma. A business model that tricolor companies have fully embraced if we also consider the impressive presence outside the national borders of other brands such as Erreà, Kappa or Macron.
