A referee had to halt a football league match for a Muslim player, Moussa Niakhate,26, to allow him to break Ramazan fast. It happened during a match between Mainz and Augsburg last week in Bundesliga which is a professional association football league in Germany.
Moussa Niakhate who is a center-back in the Mainz team was observing fast during the match. The match referee stopped the game at 65 minutes to allow Niskhate to break Ramazan fast by drinking water.
Later, Niakhate ran up to the referee to thank him for this kind gesture. It was the first time in the history of the Bundesliga league that a match has been paused to allow the player to break the fast. Augsburg won the match against Mainz with 2-0 goals. There were other cases where the referee paused the game for a similar situation.
According to The Mail, Lutz Michael Frohlich – director of communications for the German Referee Committee – has given his approval for officials to stop matches to allow players to break their fast during Ramazan.
“There is no general instruction in this regard,” he said on Monday, “but of course, we support our referees allowing such drinking breaks during Ramazan at the request of the players.”
