According to reports, Kylian Mbappe, the captain of France, stopped this year's Under 21 team from going on strike during Ramadan.
The Islamic holiday has proved to be a cause of friction in French football after the nation's Football Federation banned stoppage in games for Muslim players to break their fast last month.
After that, it seems that problems with the structure of the France national team arose and were only fixed by the senior captain Mbappe's intervention.
Unlike the senior Muslim members of France's national teams, Get Football News France reports that some young players decided not to postpone the beginning of their fast in order to take advantage of the March international break.
They informed coaching staff that they intended to start their fast right away when they arrived at France's national training facility, Clairefontaine.
According to the sources, some players were leaning heavily in favor of a strike and had considering staging a demonstration outside the office of Under 21 manager Sylvain Ripoll.
It has also been reported that some players pondered forgoing lunch to demonstrate their dedication to the fast.
The French FA was informed of the unhappiness among the youth players, which eventually led to the senior squad captain Mbappe being sent over to talk with the players about the problem.
After the meeting, some of the players elected not to fast, while others only chose to do so on specific days.
The French FA president, Philippe Diallo, later claimed that the lack of a clear rule across all teams may have led to the misunderstanding in the national side.
After succeeding Hugo Lloris as captain of the national team in March of this year, Mbappe has only held the position for a short period of time.
In 68 appearances for the national team, the 24-year-old has scored 38 goals, including a hat-trick in the most recent World Cup final.
Another scandal during Ramadan occurred earlier this year when Nantes manager Antoine Kombouare controversially dropped one of his players for refusing to eat and drink on match days.
When the French club lost to Reims 3-0 last month, the manager left defender Jaouen Hadjam off of his team.
Hadjam, 20, who joined from Paris FC in January after playing nine times for them in the second division, refrained from breaking his Ramadan fast because of his religious beliefs.
The 59-year-old Kombouare, who oversaw Paris Saint-Germain from 2009 to 2011, disclosed that Hadjam's teammates consented to break their fast in order to play against Will Still's Reims.
blogpay
