Five-game ban for Nicolas Anelka over 'quenelle' gesture
Striker fined and suspended by West Brom
Nicolas Anelka was banned for five games by the English Football Association on Thursday and immediately suspended by West Bromwich Albion for a racially aggravated goal celebration.
The French striker performed the gesture, which is known in his homeland as a “quenelle” and has been described as an “inverted Nazi salute,” during a Premier League match in December.
Although an FA disciplinary panel backed Anelka’s insistence that he was not being intentionally anti-Semitic, performing the gesture was still found to be racist and abusive.
Anelka, who appeared at the hearing this week, received the minimum five-game ban for racism offenses, was fined and ordered to complete an education course. Anelka can appeal, and he must decide within seven days of receiving the panel’s written reasons.
But West Brom responded to the verdict by suspending him while the central England club conducts an internal investigation and awaits the conclusion of the FA process.
“The club acknowledges that the FA panel ‘did not find that Nicolas Anelka is an anti-Semite or that he intended to express or promote anti-Semitism by his use of the quenelle,”’ West Brom said in a statement. “However, the club cannot ignore the offence that his actions have caused, particularly to the Jewish community, nor the potential damage to the club’s reputation.”