When Religion Gets in the Way of Soccer (or Vice Versa)

Before the year 2000, Carlos Roa never would have expected to be playing for Argentine club Olimpo today. He didn’t think he’d be alive today, let alone playing football for a living.

Carlos Roa, a goalkeeper once rumored to be on his way to Arsenal and Manchester United, shocked the world of football when he announced that he was retiring from the sport because his religion wouldn’t allow him to train or play on Saturdays. But the shock didn’t end there. Roa also announced that he was convinced that the coming of the millennium would bring an end to the world.

He told Argentine sports paper Olé, “The year 2000 is going to be difficult. In the world, there is war, hunger, plague, much poverty, storms, floods … I can assure you that those people who don’t have a spiritual connection with God and the type of life that He wants will be in trouble.” To prove his dedication, the goalkeeper, then on the books of Real Mallorca in Spain, retreated to a farm in the rural Argentine province of Santa Fe to await his fate.

Bible in hand, Roa awaits the end of the world on his farm

Roa is one of a small group of players whose religious beliefs have gotten in the way of their soccer careers (of course, they would claim that the opposite is in fact more accurate). While some players use soccer as a stage on which they can promote their religious beliefs (notably, AC Milan’s Brazilian star and Christian evangelical Kaká), others have more difficulty finding time for both endeavors.

Many of Carlos Roa’s religious beliefs come from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. His insistence on not playing on Saturdays comes from this faith tradition, which observes the Sabbath on this day. (Roa’s nickname, incidentally, is lechuga, the Spanish word for lettuce, because his being a vegetarian – another Adventist belief – stands out in beef-obsessed Argentina.)

It should be noted, however, that Roa moved away from strict Adventist beliefs (he now refers to himself simply as a Christian”). His belief that the millennium would bring the end of the world, for example, was shared by few in that church.

When the millennium arrived without incident (heck, even Y2K was a dud), Roa found himself in a predicament. He had once been a soccer star (he famously saved David Batty’s penalty kick in the 1998 World Cup to help Argentina advance), but now was just a Chicken Little living on an Argentine farm. The man who said on announcing what turned out to be a short-lived retirement, “If I go back [to football], I’d be defrauding God” needed a job and he swallowed hard. Roa returned to Mallorca, then moved to Albacete before going back to Argentina to play for Olimpo.

Roa saves Batty’s penalty kick

Taribo West is another player with a passion for his religion. The Nigerian defender of many and often-changing hairstyles grew up in the slums of Lagos and might have ended up a gangster had his footballing talents not taken him to Europe. A career as a professional player gave West great wealth, but he rejected it and the materialism he saw around him. He instead turned to religion, becoming a born-again Christian. While in Milan (where he played for both AC and Inter) in the late 1990s, West became a pastor and founded a church, called Shelter from the Storm Ministry, which caters mainly to West African immigrants.

Taribo West, doing his best to make David Beckham’s hairstyles look classy

West left Milan in 2000, but continued to return to the city to preach in his church. While playing for Derby County he often jetted off to Milan without letting his club know of his whereabouts, angering his employers After being transferred to Kaiserslauten, Taribo West refused to go to a Sunday morning training session, instead visiting his congregants in Italy. Kaisterslauten didn’t take kindly to Pastor West’s priorities and sacked him, to which the defender replied, “The Lord is more important to me than a football club.” (He then petulantly added in a most non-pastorial diatribe, “Kaiserslautern wanted me to come in the day after a match and I said to them ‘let me face my maker’. But they wouldn’t because Germans are selfish and stupid.”)

Recently, Spain has seen two instances in which religion has affected players in La Liga. Neither have been forced to miss games like Roa and West, but both have questioned (or had questions asked for them) whether they should play under circumstances that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Fredi Kanoute, a devout Muslim, claimed that wearing Sevilla’s uniform was an affront to his religion. Kanoute’s (halal) beef was with the team’s sponsor, online gambling company 888 (gambling is a sin under Islam). Kanoute said, “Gambling is the work of Satan. It is forbidden by the Koran and I will not play in a shirt that promotes it.” Kanoute taped over the uniform sponsor in protest of this affront to his religion.

Kanoute with a (fairly horrible) tape job on the Sevilla’s Satanic jersey sponsor

Hell hath no fury like a sponsor scorned and Sevilla realized they had to come to a compromise that would please both 888 and Kanoute. Eventually they settled on a charitable donation made to a cause supported by Kanoute in exchange for the Malian striker “doing Satan’s work” (perhaps it’s this diabolical boost that’s taken his goal tally 26 this season).

The devil is on his chest

Dudu Aouate’s conflict between sport and religion is not of his own making. Unlike all of the players above, the Israeli goalkeeper has tried to keep the two separate, but that has seen him mired in controversy, albeit created by others.

Aouate is an Israeli goalkeeper currently playing for Deportivo La Coruña. This past October, he faced a dilemma when his team’s match against Real Sociedad was scheduled for the night of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. The holiday, which calls on Jews to take leave of their normal activities in order to fast and pray, would conflict with shot-stopping and the like. But Aouate was eager to be flexible in his observance of Yom Kippur in order to play in the game. He suggested extending his observation an hour or two later the next night in order to make up for time lost to observance during the game.

Dudu Aouate

Aouate did eventually play versus Real Sociedad and this caused a minor uproar in Israel. Some Orthodox Jews called for him to be removed from the national team. A conservative member of the Israeli Knesset, Yaakov Margi, did the same, saying, “Someone who plays on Yom Kippur grossly tramples the values of the Jewish people and is not worthy of representing the country.” Aouate took the criticism in stride and the controversy has since died down. The goalkeeper continues to represent his country and has recently been named captain.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Africa, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.