The youth division of Maccabi Haifa is considered for many years the role model for all youth departments in Israel. Mostly this is due to the considerable economic investment in it, its facilities, and the quality of the players which graduate from it. Many of them end up in the senior team echelons, while others man key position in other teams in the major leagues.

Since its foundation in 1950 the department has went through major upheavals brought about by the determination of the club to use the youth league to lay down the proper infrastructure for its senior players. In the past players from the center of the country were not enthusiastic, to put it mildly, to move north to play in the ranks of Maccabi Haifa. But this has changed since the purchase of the team by president Yaakov Shahar (1992).