It’s a decades-old tradition that will now come to an end in Britain. According to the Daily Mail, the British FA will stop, as from this spring, to distribute champagne to players of the club winning the FA Cup – the ban is motivated by the desire not to offend any Muslim player, whose religion strictly forbids the consumption of alcohol.
For years, the winning team looked forward to a box of champagne, discreetly installed in the locker room of the victorious team. The winners of the trophy have been used to celebrate their title by splashing around the bubbly drink.
But in order not to embarrass some players, the federation has decided to put an end to these festivities. This measure will be applied from the FA Cup final between clubs Manchester City and Watford, May 18, and will be extended to all competitions organised by the UK.
Apparently, this does not rule out the possibility of distributing alcohol-free champagne to perpetuate this tradition, at least for the “visual” aspect of winning.
The English championship, called the Premier League, had already stopped in 2012 to distribute a bottle of champagne to the elected “man of the match”, after the refusal of some footballers for religious reasons.
This measure has at least allowed the clubs to comply with the law, since not all players are necessarily adults or over 21 years old. In Germany, the French player Franck Ribery, a Muslim, was sprinkled with beer in 2013, following his title of champion with Bayern Munich, by one of his teammates. It was apparently a bitter experience that had led to the cooling of relations between the two players.