"On Monday evening, Leicester City's match against Crystal Palace was stopped after half an hour to allow Foxes defender Wesley Fofana and Eagles midfielder Cheikhou Kouyaté to break their fast... The referee, Graham Scott, made history that night, simply because it was the first time an incident of this kind."
(Report by The Athletic, April 30, 2021(1))
Let's talk to you frankly, this was supposed to be a traditional report on how Muslim players are adapting to fasting in Europe. Of course, we care about these things because faith becomes more inspiring in unfriendly environments, but we almost forget, as we forget every year, the obvious question: Why is it unfriendly in the first place?
Sudden entry
Believe it or not, it was indeed the first incident of its kind. Believe it or not, the English would not have known what happened had it not been for Fofana's tweet after the match, in which he thanked his teammates, captains and the referee for allowing him to break his fast during the match after agreeing on the date of the break before it. Crystal Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guayta deliberately slowed down one of the goalkeepings in accordance with the pre-agreement with referee Graham Scott and the captains of both teams, and Fofana took to the line and had a banana and some liquids to break his fast.
Just wanted to thank the @premierleague as well as @CPFC , @vguaita13 all the Foxes for allowing me to break my fast tonight in the middle of the game. That's what makes football wonderful 🙏🏾✊🏾#WF3 #PourEux pic.twitter.com/d56o8A8ZGo
— LAWESTT (@Wesley_Fofanaa) April 26, 2021
Believe it or not, no one would have understood Fofana's need for food and drink without that tweet. Suddenly, questions began to be asked in the English and European media: Fasting? Muslims? Ramadan? Why does he need to...? Well, how does he play then? From sunrise to sunset? It's true? (2)
At first glance, this scene seems more appropriate for a slavery film set in the decades of the United States, and it even contains all the usual plot elements, from the pre-arrangement of the event, the "sympathetic other" represented by the English referee and the Spanish goalkeeper, and then the happy ending moment that everyone applauds when Fofana quickly devours the banana before resuming his one-on-one confrontation with Wilfried Zaha.
In a previous report published in 2017 through the pages of the international magazine "Four Four Two", and considered a huge scoop at the time, the young Englishman "Ben Welch", the editor of the magazine, hosts the retired Muslim English striker "Nathan Ellington", to shock the world with statements made for the first time. Surprisingly, the common belief about Muslims is not true, they do not fast for the purpose of torturing themselves. (3)
The second surprise that really knocked the world off balance was his statement that torturing oneself is not a way for Muslims to show their devotion to God, and that the real purpose of fasting is self-control, meditation, praise God for what they have, clearing the mind, and freedom from desires, and that it is - another surprise - one of the five pillars of faith.
Retired English Muslim striker Nathan Ellington (Reuters)
Welsh must not have believed what he was hearing. We are not accusing him or anyone else of bias against Muslims, of course, but probably the opposite, but as soon as you read the various European press reports about Muslim fasting in Ramadan, you will realize... Well, you'll realize a lot of things that need 10 reports to discuss, but ignorance and fear top the list, of course, ignorance in its literal sense, not with the intention of insulting.
Who are you?
This is evident from the keenness of some meta reports to assure their readers that the followers of this religion (Islam) represent at least 1.6 billion people, amounting to 20% of the world's population. This means that one in 5 people living on Earth is Muslim, and this leads you to another obvious question: What happened that made all these people need to make their existence known? (4)
The answer is very complex, so we will not discuss it here, but an important part of it lies in the fact that there is a fundamental difference between the reality that European clubs have been living for years, and the ability of the European media in general, and the English media in particular, to keep up with it. People in England and Europe are not so isolated from Muslims, but newspaper editors and reporters from channels and networks don't seem to come from these people, or perhaps it's another obvious possibility that has crossed your mind.
For example, Guayta was not the only accomplice, in another recording for the official Crystal Palace account days after the Fofana incident, Cheikhou Kouyaté revealed his teammate Christian Benteke's curiosity about the rituals of Ramadan. The Senegalese couldn't help laughing as he told the reporter how the Belgian striker shared everything from abstaining from food and drink from dawn, to trying to read the Koran, to performing Maghrib and Isha prayers at the end of the day, as if he wanted to experience the whole experience. (5)
In another BBC report, Ismail Bamji, director of Muslim Chaplains in Sport, reveals a permanent collaboration with England clubs, led by Manchester City and Liverpool, across all age groups. (6)
The organisation, which is the only Muslim sporting entity fully accredited and funded by the Premier League and the English Club Association, and which was founded in 2014, is allowed to connect with the 92 active clubs in England's professional divisions, to facilitate adaptation for Muslim players, and to guide their officials and staff on the best ways to deal with their needs, especially in the month of Ramadan.
"One of the Premier League clubs asked me to contact one of their players to convince him to postpone the Ramadan fast. This was not permissible because the rules of exception did not apply to him, and I had to tell them the facts."
(Ismail Bamji, director of Muslim Chaplains in Sports for the BBC in March 2022(6))
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by beIN SPORTS (@beinsports)
Basically, after the Fofana incident itself, the most prominent person who spoke was Brendan Rodgers, the French coach, expressing his great admiration for his player, and his surprise at the strength and mental and physical hardness he gains from adhering to the rites of his religion, which prompted Rodgers to retreat from the idea of substituting him early during the match, simply because he noticed that his performance was not affected, despite it being the second consecutive game that he enters after fasting 14 hours, and does not break it until the last quarter of an hour of the match. (1)
Rodgers' surprise makes sense, simply because that space is still an unknown world of athletic science, and studies on the effect of fasting on players' performance in matches are almost non-existent, most of them in pre-season or during training, simply because coaches and physical preparers preferred to remove fasting people from the starting line-up rather than help them. (7) (8) (9)
According to epidemiologist Dr. Abdulaziz Farouk, an epidemiologist with Euronews, 80% of Muslim players believe that their endurance is affected by fasting, 70% suffer from a decrease in concentration and mental acuity, and 60% complain about the quality of their sleep during the holy month. Except that, you will only find posts from some independent doctors about the benefits of fasting in general, and its effect on concentration and mental abilities once you get used to it. (10)
Come late!
Premier League – 21 April 2022, general view during a break in play to help Muslim players in Ramadan. (Reuters)
On the ground, there is a long way to go since the days of apprehension of Muslim players in principle, or their choice between fasting and retaining their position in the squad. Jamil Rashid, communications director at the charity Nujum Sports, explains how they work with many of the academy's teams at Premier League clubs, including Watford's under-23s. (1) (6)
This work includes workshops to introduce the rites of Islam, the reasons for fasting and its importance, the most prominent rituals practiced in the month of Ramadan, and excuses for refraining from fasting. In short, everything that can remove the effects of decades of ignorance, demonization and exclusion.
Man is the enemy of what he does not know. Perhaps this is what led Ellington to say that fasting is not as difficult as imagined, and that there are many misconceptions about it, his colleagues think that abstaining from food and drink, doing training and participating in games at the same time, is the hardest thing they can imagine, but Ellington is keen to downplay it, perhaps doing so as a way to get closer and remove cultural barriers. (3)
Another possibility is that those are Ellington's feelings about fasting, and another long way has come in preparing players for fasting as well. Dr. Zafar Iqbal, Crystal Palace doctor, talks about nutrition programs specially designed for Muslim players, which are concerned with distributing meals as much as possible after Iftar, and diversifying calories between "Quick Released" or "Quickly Released Carbs" at Iftar time, such as dates and milk, and the slow-release calories they naturally need before constipation. (5) (11)
Each of them has its own dietary program, exactly as in the rest of the months of the year, and the most important advice from "Iqbal" is to use the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) by fasting twice a week to prepare for the month and adapt the body to hardship. This is part of the Stars of Sports induction programme as well, as well as the "Ramadan packs" distributed to first-team and academy players across Premier League clubs to introduce the customs of the holy month, which Wayne Rooney, then Derby coach, volunteered to distribute himself to Academy Muslims.
Mohamed Salah (right) and Sadio Mané (Reuters)
Carl Anka, editor and analyst of The Athletic, believes that the likes of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané have a great credit for this rapid development in recent years, albeit belatedly, a view that holds a lot of merit in light of the famous Stanford University study, which claimed that hate crimes against Muslims in Liverpool fell by about 20% between 2017, when Salah joined, and 2019, the date of the study's release. (1) (12)
Looking at the unspoken rules of football gives this study more weight, as attackers are more famous and influential, and they are the ones that most football fans take as role models or role models, because their goals and dribbles make them more attractive to motivated teenagers, those who commit the most of these crimes.
Now, various media sources have revealed that the referees committee has issued specific instructions for iftar stops during matches that meet the conditions, as a natural right of Muslim players, without the need for special arrangements. A step that came too late, so late that it seems like a slap that reminds us of our place in the current human ladder, rather than a humanitarian gesture that achieves something of deserved justice, but as the English themselves say: better late than never. (13) (14)
The only consolation is that there are so many ambassadors in those countries breaking down barriers every day, Ellington was not the first, Salah, Kouyaté and Kante will not be the last, and as those barriers fall, the likes of Benteke, Guita and Rooney appear, who, in turn, are doing what cannot be ignored: ordinary human beings who communicate with ordinary human beings, those with whom experiences, victories, defeats, memories and feelings are associated, whose religion or why they fasted before they were formed and became reality.
_________________________________________________________________________
Sources: