In a surprise announcement on Thursday by Carmel Coast Regional Council head Asif Isaac, plans for a large sports complex in Kfar Galim were unveiled, centered around a football stadium, and enabled by a reported NIS 18,000,000 donation by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Kraft, the recipient of the 2019 Genesis Prize and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, has been working with the Carmel Coast Regional for a number of years to finalize the plans. The stadium will be called the “Kraft Family Sports Campus Kfar Galim” and is expected to open in approximately two years. Kraft pledged the money out of a desire to help the council’s students through the platform of sports.
The sports campus will include, among other things, a full-size standard American football field, a synthetic grass field also suitable for football and soccer games, two running tracks, two studio halls for classes and fitness activities, full night lighting, judges’ and trainers’ rooms, a 350-seat grandstand, offices, video room, dressing rooms and a pedestrian thoroughfare.
The new sports center will be named for Kraft family
“This is another strategic move that will place Kfar Galim at the top of educational institutions in Israel and as a regional and national center for the promotion of competitive sports,” said Kfar Galim CEO Danny Gildin. “We are proud of the trust of the Kraft family and the cooperation with American Football in Israel, the sport’s national federation.”
“We are working on establishing football stadiums throughout the country,” noted American Football in Israel CEO Ehud Sharon. “The Carmel beach and the Kfar Galim school is an excellent place for us to develop the football industry, and there is no doubt that the football industry – the fifth largest team sport in Israel – and the local club of the Carmel Coast in particular, will now receive a tremendous boost in the development of sports.
The sports campus named after the Kraft family in Kfar Galim will be added to the Kraft family Sportek in Jerusalem’s Emek Arazim, which was inaugurated in 2017, and the Kraft Family Stadium in the capital’s Gan Sacher.
There are 1,800 students in Kfar Galim and about 2,000 players take part in the activities under the American Football in Israel branch. One of the sport’s disciplines – flag football – is expected to enter as a guest sport at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The Kraft Family Foundation, headed by Robert Kraft was represented by Adv. Jeffrey Rashba, partner at S. Friedman Abramson & Co.