Leeds fans have come for criticism from several quarters after booing was heard during the dusk-time refreshment break in the game against Manchester City, but that’s only telling half the story. We’d like to give you the other half.

There was a break after 11 minutes in the game, to allow the three muslim players in the City side to take on refreshment as dusk fell and they were allowed to break their fast. It had previously been announced that this was to happen, and the reason for the stoppage was also shown on the big screen, but not until the break had already begun.

Booing was heard from some sections of the crowd, which has provoked a reaction in some quarters. Pep Guardiola said “It’s the modern world, right? Respect the religion, respect the diversity. That is the point. The Premier League said, ‘OK for the fasting, you can be one or two minutes’, so we did that for the players.”

And anti-discrimination organisation Kick It Out weighed in with “It’s massively disappointing that some Leeds United fans booed when Manchester City’s players broke their fast during the first half of the match at Elland Road this evening. This was compounded by the fact that an explanation was displayed on a big screen inside the stadium”.

“Pausing the game to allow Muslim players to break their fast during Ramadan has been an agreed protocol for several years now. It’s an important and visible part of making the game welcoming for Muslim players and communities. As tonight’s reaction shows, football still has a long way to go in terms of education and acceptance.”

There has been no official comment from the club as yet, but we’d like to give this a bit of context, as the situation is a little more complex than the above comments would suggest. It seems that some fans had missed the pre-match announcements and were unaware of why the break was taking place.

Yes, a message was displayed on the scoreboard, but that isn’t visible in all parts of the stadium. I’ve seen posts on social media from fans in the upper East Stand who couldn’t see the screen from there, and apparently a lot of the booing was coming from that section. Fans were irritated by the sight of the City players rushing over to get instructions from Pep after we’d made a good start to the game.

A lot of our frustration goes back to the first game between the two clubs this season at the end of November. Leeds were two down at half time, but after our now famous formation change at half time we came storming back to 2-2, and looked like we were more likely side to go on and win the game.

But that was until Donnarumma went down with an injury, with what seemed to be an instruction from the bench, as the referee can’t require a goalkeeper to leave the field for treatment. A lengthy stoppage allowed Pep to make some tactical changes and break our momentum, and they did of course go on to win the game 3-2.

Donnarumma managed to get up from his prolonged sit down and showed no further signs of injury as he managed to complete the game. So when we again saw City having a time out on Saturday after Leeds had been all over them in the first 11 minutes, fans who were unaware of the reason for the stoppage thought that Pep had managed to pull another fast one to make tactical changes and break our rhythm.

Of course, there have been a few regrettable comments on social media about this not being a -Muslim country and asking if we’re taking a break for hot cross buns during the easter matches. But there has also been the perfectly sensible suggestion that the match could have kicked off at 5.45 instead of having to rigidly kick off at Sky’s usual 5.30 slot.

So all in all, much of the unpleasantness belongs in the realms of unfortunate misunderstanding rather than intentional religious intolerance, and the only “education and acceptance” that some people need is to be aware of the importance of being aware of pre-match announcements about the game they’re going to see.

Reuters