Ash-Shaykh Muhammad bin Ibrahim Aali Shaykh, One Of The Previous Muftis of Saudi Arabia, may Allah have mercy upon him, said:

“…Whosoever contemplates upon the state of the modern sport players and what they are upon he will find that they are performing evil actions of which necessitates [total] prohibition, despite what occurs commonly throughout the course of theses games of bias partisanship and the arousal of fitnah, enmity and animosity in the hearts between the winners and the losers and between this so-called party and that so-called party which is obvious. And from [the evil] that it contains is that it brings about danger to the bodies of the players, due to the result of them crashing and hitting one another whereas it is rare that their games end without someone being afflicted with an injury or a wound or someone fainting and for that reason, the ambulance are [always] present and from [the evil] is that [these games] are established during the times of the prayer which is the result of the prayer being abandon or delayed from its prescribed time and from [the evil] is what the players are exposed to of unlawfully uncovering their awrahs while the awrah of the man is from is belly-button to his knee and whereas you find their clothes to the half point of their thighs and some even lower than that. [This is the case] while it is known that the thigh is an awrah…”

[Fataawa wa Rasaa’il Muhammad bin Ibrahim (8/84)]

Translated by

AbdulFattaah bin Uthman
Abu Fajr