(Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

Please note that this article is not about condemning a religion or its practices. Every person is able and should always be able to choose their own religion and follow its practices as their conscience guides them, as far as I'm concerned. I'm merely trying to establish a link between the fasting ritual and the supposed negative effects on professional footballers.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic Calendar. It is the Islamic month of fasting in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset.

Fasting is meant to teach the Muslim patience, modesty and spirituality. Ramadan is a time for Muslims to fast for the sake of Allah, and to offer more prayer than usual.

During Ramadan, Muslims ask forgiveness for past sins, pray for guidance and help in refraining from everyday evils, and try to purify themselves through self-restraint and good deeds. As compared to solar calendar, the dates of Ramadan vary, moving forward about ten days each year as it is a moving festival depending on the moon.

Ramadan was the month in which the first verses of the Qur'an were claimed to have been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Now this fasting, which basically means no eating and drinking from sunset until dawn, leads to some difficulties for Muslim footballers. I mean, let’s be honest here, playing an intensive football match on a professional level requires energy and players need to be on their best.

Many people seem to think that the Ramadan impacts the preparations of Muslim players in a negative manner though. Let’s take Internazionale’s Sulley Muntari as an example. The Ghanaian midfielder found himself substituted in one of his team’s matches after only half an hour, with coach Jose Mourinho claiming his performance had been poor because Muntari lacked energy due to his fast.

Muntari isn’t the only one with such a problem, as many Muslim football players encounter difficulties with their employers during the Ramadan. These players generally don’t seem to perform as well as they normally would have during a match.

I’m not just making this up, Mourinho’s substitution is just one of many examples. For example, PSV have always kept and still keep their Moroccan players on the bench if possible during Ramadan. Adil Ramzi in the past and Nordin Amrabat and Ibrahim Afellay in the present don’t play as much as they usually do.

Udinese midfielder Gokhan Inler takes it all a step further, as he doesn’t fast at all, because he feels this is detrimental to his performance.

Further evidence can be found when looking at the African Champions League, in which the teams with a predominantly Muslim squad all failed to beat the teams with mostly Christians in their squad. Tunisian side Etoile du Sahel drew at home with Nigerian Heartland, Nigerian-based Kano Pillars defeated Sudanese Al-Hilal and Zambian Zesco United grabbed a draw away to Sudan’s Al-Merreikh.

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