Maccabi Kiryat Malachi

Kiryat Malachi had no football club of its own until 1962, when Maccabi organised a team for the town under the movement's banner. The two clubs met in a local derby for decades, a rivalry that closed only in 1997, when Hapoel Kiryat Malachi folded and left Maccabi as the only football team the town had left.

Advancement came slowly and mostly through the lower divisions. Promoted to Liga Bet for the first time in 1993/1994, the club dropped straight back down after a single season. It took until 2002/2003 for Maccabi to return, this time going through the division unbeaten in twenty matches, and that form carried them up to Liga Alef for the first time in 2005/2006. Their best season there came in 2010/2011, a runners-up finish in the Southern division that put them into a promotion play-off they lost to Maccabi Yaffo. Relegation followed in 2015, and the club spent seven years working its way back before returning to Liga Alef in 2022/2023 under Yoel Suissa, a Kiryat Malachi native who had played for the club for six years and once turned out for Maccabi Tel Aviv at international level before coming home to manage it.

The team plays in orange, black and white now, colours adopted for the 2010/2011 season after decades in yellow and blue, and it introduced a new club badge in May 2023 following a vote among supporters. Nino Stadium holds only about a thousand people, nine hundred of them in the western stand. The Southern Cities derby against Beitar Ironi Kiryat Gat has become the fixture that matters most now, alongside meetings with nearby Hapoel Marmorek.