French League game sees Ramadan pause

Goalkeeper grants fasting Muslims a moment of breaking the fast in the French League

A French League match between Nantes and Le Havre showed a human moment. In the 74th minute, Nantes goalkeeper, Portuguese Anthony Lopes, fell to the ground, clutching his hamstring, in what at first glance appeared to be a routine injury requiring medical attention. Play was halted for several minutes as the medical staff rushed to the veteran goalkeeper.

But behind this pause, another story was being written.

French League shamed

The French League has regulations prohibiting the suspension of matches for religious reasons, unlike some European competitions that allow a short break at sunset to enable fasting players to break their fast.

In England, for example, the Premier League has adopted a mechanism allowing referees to grant a minute of rest at sunset during Ramadan. In France, however, the situation is different.

As Lopez fell to the ground, the Muslim players on the pitch found those precious moments they had been waiting for. They quickly headed to the touchline, ate dates, and drank water, in a quiet scene tinged with gratitude.

There was no official announcement, no special refereeing decision, just a brief window of opportunity created by the goalkeeper.

After the moment passed, Lopez got up. He showed no signs of injury and didn’t ask to be substituted. He returned to his position under the crossbar, as if nothing had happened.

Solidarity beyond words

Such details might not be recorded in goal reports, but they are etched in the players’ memories.

Lopez’s action – whether spontaneous or deliberate – carried a clear message of solidarity: in football, there is more to it than just competition.

The match ended with Nantes winning 2-0, bringing their points tally to 17. But the most important statistic wasn’t in the standings, but in the 74th minute… when the match was paused, and some players quietly broke their fast.

Between law and spirit

This incident highlights an ongoing debate within French football regarding how to handle fasting players during Ramadan, at a time when other competitions are moving towards flexible solutions that respect the legal framework while also acknowledging religious sensitivities.

Amidst this debate, Lopez’s gesture offered a simple example of humanity: a non-Muslim player giving his teammates a moment they needed, without speeches or slogans.

Sometimes, solidarity doesn’t require an official statement; it’s enough for a goalkeeper to fall, and others to rise up and break their fast.

Featured image via the Canary

Tags: football

Comments 1

MoiAussi says:

3 months ago

I try to avoid cooking/making savoury smells before iftar out of consideration for those who are fasting. It is called being a decent human being. Every normal adult behaves this way.

Anyone inconsiderate of others is either ignorant they are doing it or fully aware and doing it out of petty spite. You can educate the ignorant. Helping the spiteful is a tougher ask – they have to see what they do as a problem and want to fix it, then they will work on their issues with professional help.

People like Trump and his supporters, and wannabes like Farage, Reform, Starmer, Labour, Whatshername, Tories (remember them?), and their ilk in UK, are full of spite, delighting in ICE or genocide or sending innocent but inconvenient people to whoknowswhatkindoflife in Rawanda, often cannot be helped because they do not see spite as a problem but as a solution and, in general, they are correct about that because their spite is rewarded by society with power, wealth, status, psychological reinforcement e.g. attention – even negative attention is rewarding to a damaged psyche. Ultimately, I guess, spite is due to developmental deficits and childhood neglect or abuse. That might be the cause and it suggests strategies for prevention but that does not suggest how to cure spite in adults.

Spite is usually viewed as a personal trait but it can be instrumentalised, become a political resource – so much so, that people who are not genuinely spiteful can play-act spite to leverage its advantages. Any successful political struggle against tyranny (of Right or Left) has to have an effective strategy for decoupling spite from reward so that the spiteful no longer experience it as a positive but as a negative and are motivated to end it themselves, perhaps for purely selfish reasons, but this selfishness can be pro-social in effect.

Leftists need strategies for de-incentivising spite. Refusing attention is effective e.g. ‘stop feeding the trolls’. But hijacking attention of others by being spiteful is not the only reward, people can acquire wealth through spite e.g. hateful journalism or social media content. Decoupling the economic rewards means e.g. changing the algorithms to make spite unprofiitable – so society must regulate social media and legacy media to make them accountable for harm they do. Creating political capital from spite is commonplace. Strategy to contest it means exposing the underlying neediness in spite, the ‘pathetic bully’ relies on it, it takes the place of rational argument or is offered instead of true problem-solving evidence-based policies. You stop spite by pointing out it is not adult but a childish or even infantile phenomenon, a flaw or failure or deficit. I am sure the reader can think of other strategies – just naming it as spite can be effective in making it unrewarding to the person being spiteful, deflecting it back, making it their problem to solve, not yours.