A special treat for Mark S:
One should not use the terminology established by the non-believers and the polytheists, like: ‘foul’, ‘penalty kick’, ‘corner kick’, ‘goal’. Whoever pronounces these terms should be punished, reprimanded, kicked out of the game.
Do not set the number of players according to the number of players used by the non-believers, the Jews, the Christians, and especially the vile America. In other words, eleven players shall not play together. Make it a larger or smaller number.Do not play in two parts [halves] but rather in one part or in three parts, so as to be different than the sinful and rebellious, the non-believers and the polytheists. When you finish playing, be careful not to talk about the game and not to say “we play better than the opponent” or “so-and-so is a good player”.
If one of you inserts the ball between the posts and then starts to run so that his companions will run after him and hug him, like the players in America and France do, you should spit in his face, punish him and reprimand him, for what do joy hugging and kissing have to do with sports?
This comes from a fatwa on football issued in 2003 and republished in part in The Thinking Fan’s Guide To The World Cup*, which I read on holiday. The parts about training one’s muscles for Allah have been left out as my non-believing finger muscles protested. I present it without comment (this post title aside).
*a curate’s egg, as you’d expect, but better than the smarmy title suggests.