With the first wave of Jewish emigration to Palestine at the end of the 19th century, the Zionist movement sought to use sport to bolster its project. They believed it could be effectively channelled as a way to prepare Jewish youths in Palestine for building the ‘homeland’. This was before the Balfour Declaration – which gave a huge boost to this project in 1917, with Britain promising to help the Zionist movement establish a Jewish homeland in Mandate Palestine. In 1925, Jews in Palestine set up a body to organise and govern Jewish football clubs which had already started appearing. Early on…