Nicolas Anelka reacts at the ban put down by FFF
Nicolas Anelka, the 31-year-old French striker has called the FFF officials as a “bunch of clowns,” when given the eighteen match ban that was imposed on him by the French Football Federation. The ban most likely marks the end of his international career.
The FFF came down hard on the Chelsea player, making an example out of him. The ban was imposed on him due to the internal trouble in the team that the squad faced during World Cup. The strife is also believed to be one of the main reasons for the French’s early exit in the World Cup and their return from South Africa.
The French players did not face much fate after the FFF ruled them out of number of matches. The ruling is the aftermath of the World Cup happenings. Franck Ribery, the winger from Bayern Munich was suspended for three matches whereas Jeremy Toulalan, the defensive midfielder who plays for Olympique Lyonna was banned for a single match. Patrice Evra, a left wing back and the captain of the French National team got banned for five matches, with the highest match ban put on Nicolas by suspending him for eighteen matches. Eric Abidal and the remaining squad escaped from the punishment.
For Anelka, the ban without any doubt marks the end of his international career, with a total of sixty-nine appearances.
Anelka has previously played for Real Madrid and Liverpool. At the moment he seems least concerned because of the ban subscribed to him by the FFF.
He told the media in an interview that the whole commission was non-sense and it was nothing more than a charade by the officials to keep their heads-up. The banned footballer continued on to say that the apparent punishment had no effect on him, as his international career already ended on June 19th in their training centre at Knysna. Anelka stated that this was a seemingly ineffective effort to make an ‘apparent’ example out of him, just to feed up a few gabbers. He continued to say that the impositions put down by the FFF were a stunt to let Laurent Blanc go on in peace so that he is no longer throttled about the World Cup incident.
In the end, Anelka commented on the FFF by saying that the officials were’ clowns’ and that he was rolling on the floor laughing at the childish measures taken up by them.
Evra, Ribery, Toulalan and Anelka were called in for a hearing to discuss the team’s behaviour in the World Cup. The in-team fighting was to be investigated, which was the main reason why the team got eliminated in the group stages.
Anelka was sent home, and it was reported that the reason for this was that he was abusing Raymond Domenech, France national team coach. This incident happened at half time during the 2-0 defeat against Mexico.
Following Nicolas outburst, he was sent home the very next day. Soon the media found out about the incident and the news spread like jungle fire. FFF president Jean Pierre Escalettes asked the player to publically apologise to the coach. However, Anelka refused to do so.
The next day the squad refused to go to training as a protest of Anelka being sent home during the World Cup. This was a day before their match against the South African team. The French team subsequently lost the match 2-1. France finished at the bottom of their group having scored only one goal and earned one point from a total of three matches. This fall out of the team led to the regrettable French exit made by the new coach Blanc. He suspended all twenty-three members of the World Cup Squad from the friendly against Norway.
The FFF also put their bonuses that were owed to the players on ice for the time being, Abidal the defender from Barcelona, Evra from Manchester United and Toulalan from Lyon appeared in the hearing while Anelka and Ribery from Bayern Munich sent their representatives.
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