Basketball player moves from Israeli to Moroccan team

Basketball player Mahmoud Abu Arisha has moved for one year from an Israeli to a Moroccan team, Anadolu news agency reported yesterday.

Speaking to the news wire, member of the executive bureau of Morocco’s Association Michlifen Ifrane Basketball said 24-year-old Abu Arisha had signed a one-year contract with the Moroccan club.

Abu Arisha played for Hapoel Beersheba in the Israeli Basketball Premier League as well as the Israeli national basketball team.

He has been in Ifrane for over two months and is considered one of the leading foreign players in the Moroccan league.

“He signed the contract and started playing with us,” the member of the executive bureau of Morocco’s Association Michlifen Ifrane Basketball, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

“The contract is for one year,” he said. “After completing this year, the player can decide to remain with us or leave.”

Israel Hayom said: “It is for the first time in the country’s history an Arab player who is a citizen of Israel has signed to play for an Arab country’s team.”

At the end of 2020, Israel and Morocco announced the resumption of mutual diplomatic relations after they were suspended in 2002.

READ: Morocco groups reiterate rejection of normalisation deal with Israel