SKOPJE – Joining the Macedonian team only two weeks ago, Albanian devout Muslim player Florent Osmani has decided to leave Skopje, saying he couldn’t stand the cross on the club’s emblem.

“The emblem of Skopje has a cross on it which I have always covered it so that it could not be seen. I was doing that for religious reasons,” Osmani was quoted by World Bulletin on Saturday, July 29.

“Because of that everybody looked at me differently and eventually started ignoring me despite the fact that I came as a great reinforcement.”

Due to his and others behavior, he was summoned on a meeting with the club’s board earlier this week. The player and the team decided to terminate the contract on mutual agreement.

Ending the deal with Osmani, dubbed a goal machine, Skopje will have to look for a new striker.

“The board invited me to a meeting today and told me that what I do is not ok and if I wanted to be part of this club I could not cover the emblem anymore,” Osmani said.

“I am a practitioner of Islam and my religion does not allow me to do so. I have always covered only the cross and not the whole emblem. But since they forbid me to continue doing that, I decided to leave the club because religion for me is the most sacred thing.”

Osmani came to Skopje after he left Kosovan side Liria, while he previously played for Shkupi, Gostivar, 12 Bingölspor (Turkey), Butrinti (Albania) and Skopje.

Interestingly, Osmani was already part of this team two seasons in a row. Back than the cross wasn’t a problem for him, but probably he experienced a religious enlightenment recently.

In 2014, Real Madrid removed the cross from their club crest as part of a lucrative three-year deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

It is believed the European champions’ new crest, minus the Christian cross, was created so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where a marketing drive will take place.