Salam alaykum! This is our weekly news recap. If you have a story or athlete you’d like to pitch for it, email us at TheAthleticUmmah@gmail.com.
The Headlines
Mohamed Elneny opens Arsenal’s first player multi-faith room: At the start of Ramadan, Arsenal midfielder Mohamed Elneny unveiled the club’s first multi-faith room specifically for players. The prayer room is located at the Emirates Stadium, the home of Arsenal. Elneny said he’s proud to open Arsenal’s player multi-faith room. “Having this space to contemplate and pray will change the lives of future Arsenal players,” he said on X, formerly Twitter. “I am really grateful to the staff and everyone involved in making this happen.”
Muhammad Ali to be inducted into WWE Hall of Fame: Legendary Muslim boxer Muhammad Ali will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 5 during WrestleMania 40 weekend, as first reported by Variety. Ali, who died in June 2016, will be inducted by his widow, Lonnie Ali. Ali, who won 56 of his 61 boxing matches, has dabbled in professional wrestling. In 1976, he fought an exhibition match against Japanese pro wrestling legend Antonio Inoki (who later converted to Shia Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Hussain Inoki); and in 1985, Ali was a special guest referee for the main event of WrestleMania I.
Kylian Mbappé sues influencer for using his name in kebab description: Football superstar Kylian Mbappé is suing a French-Algerian influencer who opened a kebab shop for using his name to describe one of his shop’s products, according to ESPN. Mohamed Henni, an Olympique Marseille fan with 1.8 million Instagram followers, describes his Klüb kebab as made with a “baker round bread, as round as Mbappé’s skull.” But the PSG player doesn’t see the humour in the description; Henni received a certified letter on Wednesday from the Mbappés’ lawyer, demanding he remove Mbappé’s name from the menu within eight days, or else he’ll be taken to court for using it without his consent for commercial purposes.
Atlanta ownership group formally requests NHL expansion team: A group led by former ice hockey player Anson Carter has made a formal request to the National Hockey League to begin the process of adding an expansion team in metro Atlanta, U.S. The group is seeking an NHL team for a new arena designed by architect Frank Gehry that will be part of a larger development at the North Point Mall site in Alpharetta, about a 30-minute drive away from downtown Atlanta. Atlanta previously had two NHL teams: the Flames from 1972 to 1980 and the Thrashers from 1999 to 2011. Both teams ended up relocating to Canada.
What You Might’ve Missed
FIFA’s U-17 World Cup is getting the expansion treatment. On Thursday, March 14, FIFA announced that both the men’s and women’s editions of the U-17 World Cup have been expanded to feature more participants.
On the men’s side, the tournament has doubled in size, from 24 teams to 48. On the women’s side, it has grown from 16 teams to 24. Both tournaments will also be played annually now, starting in 2025.
As part of the announcement, FIFA also revealed the hosts for the next five editions of each competition. Qatar, which hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, will host the men’s U-17 edition from 2025 to 2029; and Morocco will host the women’s tournament in that same timeframe.
FIFA did not identify rival bidders for the hosting decisions, which it said followed “a global call for expressions of interest in hosting both competitions.” They are intended to use existing venues “in the interest of tournament efficiencies and sustainability.”
The tournaments, which showcase some of the best teenage footballers in the world, are the latest international competitions to be expanded by the sport’s global governing body. The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup will be the first to feature 48 teams, growing from 32 previously; and the expanded, 32-team FIFA Club World Cup kicks off in 2025.
The news has received some mixed reactions from fans. On the one hand, some have praised FIFA for giving more opportunities for young players to represent their nation on the biggest of stages, before they pass the maximum age restriction.
Some also argue that more games mean more opportunities for players to finetune skills at the youth level before the big leagues.
However, others have expressed concerns about the logistics of hosting these tournaments every year for five straight years, particularly around qualification.
Before the expansion, nations usually qualified for the tournament by reaching the semi-finals or the final of their most recent U-17 continental competitions. But those competitions are usually played biennially, so unless changes are made to their schedule or a new qualification method is introduced, there’s a risk of the same 48 teams playing in back-to-back World Cups.
“I genuinely do not understand FIFA’s decision to push the u-17 [sic] WWC to a yearly event,” tweeted women’s football writer Sylvain Jamet. “These are schoolkids and when will teams have time to play the qualifiers?”
There are also concerns about what the additional games will do to players’ still-developing bodies. Some of these players may already be playing first-team football in professional leagues, and more fixtures and less time off to recover could equal more injury problems at earlier ages.
Fixture congestion is already a significant problem in senior men’s football. Last year a report by the international players union, Fifpro, found that Jude Bellingham had played more than 30% more minutes of competitive football by his 20th birthday than Wayne Rooney at the same age. Furthermore, Kylian Mbappé had played 26,952 minutes of football by the time he turned 24 – 48% more minutes than Thierry Henry at the same age.
“There’s absolutely no viable reason to want to push [children] to their physical limits like this every single year in such arid countries,” one user on X, formerly Twitter, tweeted in response to FIFA’s announcement.
Nevertheless, some have called the expansion a “genius move” by the sport’s global governing body.
“A lot of countries tend to just use the 17-year-olds and then the 16-year-olds would have been left behind,” said Rudolph Speid, chairman of the Jamaica Football Federation’s technical committee
“What would happen is that they would be born in what you call the wrong year because at the next World Cup, they would be too old to play. So I think this is a genius move that gives every player under a certain age an opportunity to play in a World Cup which is really the dream of every football player,” he told The Gleaner.
Muslimah Athlete of the Week
One of the things that pleasantly surprised me and Sarah after we launched The Athletic Ummah in Oct. 2023 is the size of the Muslim weightlifting/powerlifting community, masha Allah. We’ve gotten to know and follow so many incredible and influential Muslim lifters — from Canada and the United States to the U.K. and Australia — and we’re really pleased with the work that is being done in this sphere.
This week, we want to highlight one of the community’s members who achieved some great results in her first powerlifting meet: Fatma Abdou, also known as @fa_exphys on Instagram.
Abdou recently conquered her first powerlifting meet, after eight years of wanting to compete. The competition was done under the Powerlifting Australia banner, a powerlifting organization in her country.
As she told The Athletic Ummah on Instagram, Abdou had to deal with a few challenges ahead of the meet, from balancing training with her life as a working mother of three children, to recovering from a recent back injury.
“I injured my lower back three months before registering [for the meet] and it took me a good two weeks to be able to walk properly without pain,” she said. “Till now I still feel a niggle there, which worried me as I didn’t want to injure myself again like that, especially not during my powerlifting meet.”
Abdou was also concerned about whether she’d make the cut for the 84 kg weight class.
“I literally had to lose 2kgs [a] week before the meet, otherwise I’d be disqualified,” she said. “I made weight exactly on the dot at my powerlifting meet.”
Abdou competed in three lifts: the squat, the bench and the deadlift. She achieved a clean 72 kg (about 155 lbs) bench press and was able to deadlift a personal record (PR) 143 kgs, though she was given a failing grade for hitching the bar on her thighs at the top of the lift.
But according to Abdou, her best performance was in the squat. Despite it being her least favourite lift, she recorded 105 kg in it.
“I didn’t fail at all with any of the attempts and got a 5 kg PR on the day as well,” she said.
Throughout the competition, Abdou would remind herself that “you were born for this,” and she just needed to focus on the lifts and not worry about anything else.
That self-confidence paid off, as Abdou won a gold medal in her debut and was recognized as the meet’s best female lifter. She said it was amazing knowing she could accomplish something like that.
“Thinking I’d never get a chance to compete, let alone win a medal — its a feeling that you cannot describe,” she said. “[I’m] making my kids proud that their mum competed and won a gold medal.”
“Also being the only hijabi powerlifter in the meet [and] leaving with a gold medal is definitely a good feeling.”
In her Instagram post after the meet, Abdou said she conquered the competition “with gratitude to Allah [s.w.t] for giving me the strength that brought me here and the humility to face the challenges ahead.”
She said her faith has provided her with mental strength, a sense of purpose and belief that can achieve her goals. She hopes that, as a hijabi powerlifter, she can inspire and represent others who may face similar challenges and barriers as she did.
“It’s possible to excel in sports while staying true to one’s faith and identity,” she said.
Abdou plans on attending more powerlifting meets in the future, potentially closer to the end of the year. In the meantime, she’s proud of what she was able to achieve at the Powerlifting Australia meet, and she thanks other Muslimah lifters for their support.
“All the women have been so amazing,” she said. “Being part of this community feels empowering and enriching, knowing that you have a network of like-minded individuals who share your passion for lifting and understand the intersection of faith and sport.”
“I really do hope that this inspires more Muslim and hijabi women to follow their dreams and [not] let anything or anyone get in their way.”
For her fantastic performance in her debut powerlifting meet, Abdou is our Muslimah Athlete of the Week.
Headline image credit: @ElNennY/X