It was a nice gesture on Monday night with Crystal Palace pausing their game to let Leicester City defender Wesley Fofana break his Ramadan fast, BBC reported.
“Just wanted to thank the @premierleague as well as @CPFC, @vguaita13 [and] all the Foxes for allowing me to break my fast tonight in the middle of the game,” Fofana wrote on Twitter.
“That’s what makes football wonderful.”
Referee Graham Scott halted the play in the 35th minute while Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita waited to take a goal-kick to let Fofana take on an energy drink.
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Fofana was also substituted during Leicester’s 3-0 win over West Brom with manager Brendan Rodgers admitting he did so to give the 20-year-old a chance to take some food on board.
“It was just one where I thought if I could get him off then he could get some food into him on the bench, and just protect him a little bit,” Rodgers said afterwards.
“I’ve worked with lots of players with devotion to their faiths and for a lot of the guys it gives them strength.”
He added: “It’s remarkable. If you think of his performance at the weekend in an FA Cup semi-final, where he hasn’t eaten all day and then he had his first taste of food with 15 minutes to go, and then the same today [against West Brom], with an 8pm kick-off, he’s not eaten all day or drank and he can still perform to that level.”
Fasting Athletes
Ramadan is the 9th month of the Hijri Islamic calendar. It commemorates the first revelation of the Qur’an to Prophet Muhammad.
From dawn until sunset, Muslims refrain from food, drinking liquids, smoking, and engaging in sexual relations).
Dismissing fears and worries associated with Ramadan with regard to sportsmen, a FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) study established that young male national football players who observe Ramadan fasting in a controlled environment show no compromise in their physical and physiological performance or reduction in their subjective well-being.
The study is replicated to investigate a wider range of elite level players.
Another study published in May 2012 in the journal of sports science showed that, generally, Ramadan fasting has minor effects on health and physical fitness.