Three foreign tours, with approximately $75,000 as the total gross proceeds, are contemplated by the National Champion Hakoah Soccer team at the end of the present season. Offers have been received by Dr. Max Krauss, president of the Hakoah All-Stars to tour Australia, South America and Europe in the middle of May, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Australian Football Association has sent the New York club an inviting offer of a three months tour of the continent with the promise of at least ten games in addition to other fixtures if time allows. Games will be played with clubs under the jurisdiction of the F.I.F.A. only as the Hakoah are forbidden by the Austrian Football Association and the U.S.F.A. to engage the outlawed Australian teams. If the Jewish club accepts the Australian offer they will leave New York on May 25th arriving in Australia about June 1st with a stay until the middle of August.
The second offer is for a tour of South America, coincident with the International football championship that will be competed for in Uruguay this summer under the auspices of the F.I.F.A. and in which the United States is expected to furnish representation. Leaving New York May 1st the Hakoah club would tour the countries of Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentine and Brazil. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, 25,000 Jewish sport followers are expected to witness the Hakoah in action should the tour materialize. Ten games for South America have been promised with the offer of $37,000 as the Hakoah’s share. The tour will take three and a half months.
A European tour of eight countries completes the offers that Dr. Krauss is considering. The tour would include six games in Poland with a guarantee of $1,000 for each game; three games in Czechoslovakia with guarantees of $2,000 or 60% of the gate proceeds for each; one game at Cherbourg with a well known amateur club, netting the Hakoah $750 or 75% of the proceeds; one game with the Vienna Hakoah without profit to the New York team; one amateur and one professional club as opponents in Paris with promises of $1,700 for both games; one game with the famous M.T.K. club of Budapest and a match with the VAC club in the same city; one game in Switzerland and two or three games in Italy on the return to America.
In case the Hakoah decides upon the European tour they will exchange three of the present players for three forwards of the Vienna Hakoah. It is most likely that the club will make the South American tour, although Dr. Kraus would like to go to Australia. The British Dominion, incidentally, has guaranteed twice the proceeds of the South Americans.
Many considerations are preventing a hasty decision as to which of the countries the Jewish club will favor. One of these is the fact that four of the Hakoah players are being married soon. These are: Sternberg, Fisher, Wagner and “Ziggy” Wortman.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
