Professional footballer stops playing for religious reasons – Swiss Catholic Portal

The young footballer Zurich professional Silvan Wallner ends his career with immediate effect. The reason is his faith, says national team player suisse M21. Since Saturday is a biblical day of rest, Wallner no longer wants to play football for profit.

At 22 years old, Silvan Wallner was only at the beginning of his professional football career. And yet, the Swiss, who until now played for FC Linz in Austria, decided to hang up his football boots – for reasons of faith, as written 20Minuten.ch.

“I want to follow Jesus Christ and the biblical day of rest has become important to me. For me, this means that I no longer want to play football professionally on Saturdays,” Wallner recently said according to a statement from his current club FC Linz. This is a personal conviction he has come to in recent times. “I am a believing Christian and I read the Bible. I make my own decisions about my life,” Wallner added.

FC Linz, which plays in the Austrian national league, announced that the two parties had agreed on an early termination of the contract. Wallner transferred from FC Zurich to Linz in September and has played five games since.

The player said nothing about his specific membership in a Church. But the link with an evangelical church seems obvious in that they often observe Saturday – the seventh day of the week according to the Bible (Shabbat) – as a day of rest and celebrate their religious services on that day. For this reason, their members give up working on Saturdays, the day when most football matches take place in almost all European countries. (cath.ch/kath.ch)