Foot: “No one has forbidden fasting” during Ramadan, assures the president of the FFF, Philippe Diallo

Philippe Diallo, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), spoke again about the practice of Ramadan within the selections. The FFF has put in place, from 2024, a new rule to regulate the fasting practiced by Muslim players on the French teams. To the point of banning it? “No one at the Federation, starting with me, has forbidden anyone to fast,” Diallo argued on Sunday on Franceinfo.

“I cannot accept that people say that the FFF carries out religious discrimination,” Diallo also declared, in a barely veiled response to Red Star coach Habib Beye. The latter advocated an adaptation according to the faith of the players, whether they are doing “Lent” or “Ramadan”. Beye regretted “that we stigmatize” the Muslim religion “because if we do it on one religion, we must do it on all religions, and that is not the case today.”

“My duty is to ensure a form of neutrality in sporting practice,” Diallo explained on Sunday. The Federation has set a framework, like at school. There cannot be a modification of our schedules, of our organization, which is linked to the implementation of a religious practice, whatever it may be. As he recalled in an interview with Le Figaro last week, Diallo recalled the decision rendered by the Council of State which went in the direction of the FFF after the attacks by various collectives.

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“There is no stigmatization of anyone in my approach, there is absolute respect for everyone’s beliefs. But when we are in the French team, we must respect a framework,” insisted Diallo in our columns. On Sunday, the 60-year-old leader judged that “the trial against the Federation is a bad trial, unfair, and based on false foundations”.

And to remember that “when players are selected for the French team, I do not ask them their religion”. A week earlier, L’Équipe claimed that a player had been “questioned about his intentions regarding Ramadan” during a French team gathering, and was surprised by his non-call-up this month. According to the advisor of a young international, there was “question of banning fasting” in the new FFF regulations.