The government represents the people in spending money and managing the country’s affairs, based on its priorities. There is no doubt that spending huge sums of money on sports needs to be reconsidered, for it is a kind of extravagance that is prohibited in Islam. This does not mean that sports or spending on them are prohibited; the prohibition is on extravagance.
Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi stated the following:
If the state desires to stick to the laws of Almighty Allah, it has to spend the money on its people according to the Islamic legal priorities. We agree that Islam approves of sports, but this does not elevate sports above being just permissible or preferable. There are Islamic legal obligations that have to be fulfilled first, such as meeting the needs of the poor including food, clothing, medicine, education, etc. Among the priority needs to be met is the Muslim nation’s need for development in various sciences and industries and so on. These issues have to be given priority in the budget of any Muslim country.
In addition, the current worldwide phenomenon of paying such attention to sports deviates the Muslim youths’ attention from the Ummah’s problems and future, and so the dominating powers remain controlling the Ummah’s resources. This is clearly shown in the Muslim countries, where a lot of regimes try hard to distract the youth from thinking about or working on significant national issues. They make youth absorbed in watching various sport games and immoral videos. This phenomenon has to be fought, for giving priority to what is most important over what is less important, and to what is obligatory over what is preferable, is a common-sense principle everywhere.
Moreover, Dr. Muhammad Ra’fat `Uthman, professor of Islamic Law stated the following:
The millions spent on buying and selling soccer players should rather be spent on a lot of priorities and necessities in the Muslim communities. There are thousands of homeless Muslims who sleep on the ground and on pavements, and they are surely more entitled to these millions spent on buying soccer players.