Alona Barkat celebrates: How the club brought in over 35 million shekels in a week

After winning the national championship, the Hapoel Be'er Sheva football club, owned by businesswoman Alona Barkat, continues to dream big about qualifying for the Champions League after defeating the Icelandic Vikingur 2:0 last night (Wednesday), winning 3:2 on aggregate and advancing to the third qualifying round.

The implications are clear: a busy European season awaits Alona Barkat's team, which has secured a spot in a European group stage. In fact, even if they are eliminated by Red Star Belgrade, whom they were drawn against in the third round of Champions League qualifying, Be'er Sheva will play in the Europa League playoffs. If they are eliminated from there as well, Ran Kozuch's team will play in the Conference League group stage.

In fact, Be'er Sheva has already secured an initial grant of 3.17 million euros for participating in the Conference League league phase. If they advance to the Europa League league phase, the amount will rise to 4.31 million euros, and if they stun everyone and reach the Champions League, they will bring in 18.62 million. Thus, over 60 million shekels are on the table, and Alona Barkat can certainly dream big.

Furthermore, the team from the Negev capital has already secured a grant of 1.1 million euros for winning the championship, of which 750 thousand is for participating in the Conference League playoffs, and 260 thousand is guaranteed to a champion that does not reach a European league phase.

Now they have brought in an additional 2.07 million euros, a sum expected to rise further, with immediate revenues of over 5 million euros, which is almost 20 million shekels net. Add to this the sale of Kings Kangwa, the team's star, to Panathinaikos for about 4.5 million euros, and we get revenues of almost 10 million euros in a week, which is about 35 million shekels.