This guest blog is written by Michael Dhanoya, a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leicester. His research focuses on Shiaphobia as a form of religious hate crime, a subject he is well-versed in due to his work supporting victims of various forms of hate crime. The views expressed are the author’s own. You can contact Michael at: md493@leicester.ac.uk.
Islamophobic hate is alive and well in the supposed ‘beautiful game’. More specifically, English football has been mired in controversy concerning incidents where manifestations of this form of hate have been expressed against Islam and Muslims in general, along with being targeted at several high-profile football players. Examples of the former include football fans tearing out pages of the Qur’an and Muslim football fans being verbally abused whilst offering prayers at football stadiums. Cases of the latter include Egyptian footballer Mido and his compatriot, Mohamed Salah, suffering verbal abuse whilst fulfilling fixtures for their respective teams, namely, Middlesbrough and Liverpool. This blog discusses the abuse directed at Muslim players who broke their Ramadan fast in the middle of a recent Barclays Premier League match between Leeds United and Manchester City, in February 2026. I contend that this incident constitutes further evidence for how Islamophobia is a manifestation of cultural racism.
The Match
The Islamic month of Ramadan sees observing Muslims fast, thereby avoiding all food and drink from dawn to sunset. This year saw this Islamic month fall on Tuesday, 17th February 2026, to Wednesday, 18th March 2026 in the Gregorian calendar. As this period coincides with the Barclays Premier League season, Muslim footballers often take to the pitch whilst fasting, with the time to break their fast occurring partway through the fixture. To combat this issue, 2021 saw the Barclays Premier League introduce the protocol allowing matches played during Ramadan to be halted, thereby enabling Muslim football players to break their fast. This scenario played out on the 28th of February, which saw Leeds United host Manchester City. By way of an explanation for the stoppage in play, the large screen located within the stadium read, ‘As tonight’s match takes place during the holy period of Ramadan play has been paused briefly to allow players to break their fast’. However, this halt to proceedings was not warmly welcomed. Various sections of the fans in attendance reacted to the message being displayed on the screen by booing.
In response, Leeds United released an official club statement in which the incident was denounced as being ‘disappointing and unexpected’. Further, Pep Guardiola, the current Manchester City manager, deplored the booing as symptomatic of an increasingly ever-present attitude within society that expresses hostility towards multiculturalism and diversity. However, other personalities debated the necessity of interrupting the match and questioned whether the relevant players could have observed their breaking of the fast at half-time.
Islamophobia as Cultural Racism
I argue that explicit targeting of Muslim football players for observing a core tenet of their faith is a clear act of Islamophobia. Various attempts have been made to define this variant of hate. Whilst some deconstruct the term ‘Islamophobia’ into its two constituent parts, namely, ‘Islam’ and ‘phobia’, so as to define the phenomenon as a fear and dislike that one has of Islam and Muslims, others define the phenomenon as being akin to racism in concept and manifestation.
I believe it is important to acknowledge that racism is a multifaceted entity that can be applied to a variety of contexts. Thus, the concept ought not to be linked unwaveringly to notions of biological determinism alone, as it can also be associated with concepts of cultural or religious superiority. Indeed, cultural racism is a phenomenon that draws upon visible identifiers of cultural difference to justify manifestations of hostility and vilification circulated about, and directed towards, those considered as ‘other’.
The booing directed towards Muslim football players by supporters is a prime example of Islamophobia being a form of cultural racism. The fans evidently sought to ‘other’ the country’s Muslim population and demarcate it from the general non-Muslim populace. More specifically, this ‘othering’ process framed Muslims as possessing non-native and antagonistic cultural views that are incongruent with British values (whatever is meant by this term). By jeering and publicly expressing their displeasure at the fact that the players were engaging in practices that highlighted their adherence to Islam, the fans in question manifested a fear of an unwanted alien presence of Muslims within the country. This supposed ‘Islamisation’ is positioned concomitantly as an attempt to ‘de-anglicise’ the nation.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The argument that Muslims seek to replace the homogenous non-Muslim culture of the United Kingdom with the alien worldview of Islam is nothing new. The examples of Islamophobic hate expressed at football matches, cited previously, revolve around the notion that the presence of Islam and Muslims is a threat to the preservation of the nation’s native (explicitly non-Muslim) outlook. Such incidents frame Islamophobia as a phenomenon that sees Muslims undergo a process of racialisation, albeit with notions of biological superiority being supplanted by notions of cultural superiority. Thus, the incident that unfolded when Leeds United hosted Manchester City is an addition to a series of actions, the iterations of which see Islam and Muslims being discussed in exclusionary, as opposed to inclusionary, terms. Such actions also send a very clear message, namely that, despite some of the greats of the game eulogising that the sport promotes social inclusivity, the uncomfortable truth is that in the minds of some fans, Muslims are not welcome in the world of football. Perhaps the ‘beautiful game’ is not so beautiful after all.
This guest blog is the intellectual property of © Michael Dhanoya.
The blog site is © Natasha Mulvihill and Criminology Tales, 2026.
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