Nicolas Anelka

Nicolas Sébastien Anelka (French pronunciation: ​[ni.kɔ.la a.nɛl.ka]; born 14 March 1979) is a French footballer who plays for Mumbai City in the Indian Super League. Prior to his retirement from international football, Anelka was also a regular member of the French national team. Former Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti has described him as a quick player with good aerial ability, technique, shooting, and movement off the ball.

Anelka began his career at Paris Saint-Germain, but soon moved to Arsenal. He became a first team regular and won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award the following season. Real Madrid signed him for £22.3 million in 1999, but he did not settle in well and returned to Paris Saint-Germain in a £20 million deal. Despite regular first team football in Paris, Anelka set his eyes upon the Premier League once more; he went on loan to Liverpool in January 2002 but joined Manchester City for £13 million at the start of the 2002–03 season. After three seasons in Manchester, he moved to Fenerbahçe for two seasons before returning to England to join Bolton Wanderers – in deals worth £7 million and £8 million, respectively. He transferred to Chelsea from Bolton for a reported £15 million in January 2008. During his transfers over the years, he has built an aggregate transfer cost of just under £90 million. On 12 December 2011, Shanghai Shenhua announced that they had reached an agreement with Anelka to join the team in the winter transfer window. After one season there, Anelka joined Italian side Juventus on a six-month loan deal in 2013, after which he was released from Shanghai and signed for West Bromwich Albion on a free transfer.

Anelka has played 69 times at international level and won his first international honours with France at Euro 2000, and won the Confederations Cup the following year. His failure to settle at club level limited his international appearances, but he returned to the national team for the Euro 2008 competition. On 19 June 2010, Anelka was excluded by the French Football Federation from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa for "comments directed against the national coach, Raymond Domenech, unacceptable to the FFF, French football, and the principles they uphold." Two months later, having failed to turn up to his disciplinary hearing, he was banned for France's next eighteen games by the FFF, effectively ending his international career.

Anelka is also known for his controversial relationship with French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala and notably attracted widespread condemnation after performing a hand gesture called the "quenelle", created by the latter and regarded by some as anti-Semitic, on the pitch when playing for West Bromwich Albion in 2013. Anelka has responded that the gesture is anti-establishment, not anti-Semitic. An FA disciplinary hearing banned Anelka for five games, but found that he was not anti-Semitic, and had not intended the gesture to express or promote anti-Semitism. After West Bromwich Albion suspended him pending their own investigation, Anelka was given notice of termination of his contract by the club due to the club and player being unable to come to terms over the conditions required for the suspension by the club to be lifted, and comments made by the player on Twitter.

The section "Biography" of this page contains content from the copyrighted Wikipedia article "Nicolas Anelka"; that content is used under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.