The coach of the French club “Nantes” Antoine Compard decided to exclude the young Algerian football player Gwen Hagam from the match with “Reims” today, Sunday, as part of the twenty-ninth round of the local league “Ligue 1”.
The French Federation has issued a statement halting matches due to breaking the fast during Ramadan.
The match between Nantes and its guest Reims will take place today at 13:00 at the Le Beaujoire stadium.
And according to press reports, the French Football Federation previously sent an email to all local league referees to remind them to abide by its rules and not stop matches due to breaking the fast during the month of Ramadan.
According to French network France Ouest, Compariet excluded the Algerian from the match for refusing to break his fast instead of fasting due to the team entering the match after being asked to do so by the coach.
Hagham only agreed to have breakfast in matches away from Nantes, but not in home matches, such as today’s game against Reims.
The Compare coach followed this method when he coached Paris Saint-Germain in 2009, when he said: “At every club I go to, I have a very simple rule. days are prohibited.
And he continued: “Those players who fast during Ramadan will be excluded and stay at home. I will not interfere with the health of the players and create problems for others. When you do not eat all day, it becomes difficult.”
The report confirms that other Muslim players in Nantes had no problem agreeing to break the fast during Ramadan daytime on the day of the match, unlike Hagam.
Former Saint-Étienne coach Pascal Duprat commented: “The health of the player is important to me. When you have a player who will play 94 minutes at full strength without food or drink, I fear for his health.”
He added: “When I trained at Saint-Étienne (2021-2022 season), I had 35 professional players, including 20 Muslim players, and everything was going well.”
Notably, Nantes has more than one Muslim player, including former Egyptian and Zamalek striker Mostafa Mohamed, who is on loan at Galatasaray until June next year.
Source: media