Just learned something this morning. The CL final will be played this year during Ramadan. We have 3 Muslim players - Can, Mane & Salah.
They will have to be fasting for the 10 days leading up to and including the CL final date.
"An imam [a Muslim religious leader] told me that, for each of the 30 days I didn't fast, I'd need to fast for a month as penance," the rower recalls.
Unwilling to spend two and half years only eating in darkness, Sbihi searched for an alternative in the scriptures.
He discovered - via a cousin in Tangiers and a chance conversation with feted middle-distance runner Hicham El Guerrouj, who also missed fasts during his glittering career - that the Koran would permit him to feed 60 poor people every day for 30 days instead.
He paid for 1,800 meals at a cost of £3,000.
"It's a large sum of money and I'd love to have it back, but knowing why I spent it makes me happy," he says. "It felt important.
"I gave a cheque to a charity called Walou4us, which helps street kids in North Africa, and cash to my family in Morocco to spread about to those who needed it most, because those people would be more likely to accept it from them."
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