Jerusalem: A top Israeli football team has banned a left-wing newspaper from its press conferences after it wrote about the club's perceived anti-Arab stance. Haaretz daily has been highlighting the lack of diversity at Beitar Jerusalem since last summer, adding a sentence to every match report saying that they have never had an Arab player.

Beitar, who have some notoriously ultra-nationalist fans, are currently third in the Israeli premier league. Haaretz reporter Dor Blech said they were the only professional club never to have had an Arab player, calling it "unacceptable". The club confirmed that Blech was banned from the press box for last Monday's game and would continue to be in the future.