The Applicant is the owner of the Maccabi Ironi Bat Yam soccer team, and as such he is not included in the definition of "acting officer" according to section 2g. (1) to the Arbitration Institute's Regulations. There is no mention in the Sports Law and the Arbitration Institution's regulations that it also applies to the owner of a team. Moreover, the applicant did not attach an affidavit on his behalf to the application he submitted and did not show that the law applied to him.
As fordefendants 1-4, although they joinedthe motion for summary dismissal, they did not show that the provisions of the Sports Law and the Arbitration Institution's bylaws relating to the transfer of the proceeding to arbitration apply to them and that their occupation is covered by the definitions of the Sports Law. Therefore, it is not possible to split the hearing since the stay of the proceedings does not apply to them, and for reasons of efficiency, the hearing in the case of all the defendants must be held before the court here.
According to the respondent's version, this is not a matter of sport or of organized sports activity under the Sports Law. The law is aimed only at regulating sports activities and is not intended to apply to torts, such as defamation. Therefore, there is no place to apply to the present case the rules regarding the transfer of the hearing to the arbitration institution of the Football Association, when it is not a sporting activity as defined in thelaw. Moreover, the arbitrators of the Football Association have been trained to hear claims that directly relate to sporting matters related to activity within the framework of the Association or the Association, and they do not have the training or authority to hear the cause of defamation.
There is no contractual engagement between the Applicants and the Respondent, and therefore, the Association's arbitration institution has no authority to hear the Respondent's claim, since the authority granted to the Association's judicial bodies is limited only to sports matters that are part of the contractual engagement between the parties.