Paris, June 23: Nicolas Anelka, one of the top Muslim soccer players in the world, was recently kicked off the French team after a disagreement with coach Raymond Domenech.
The situation started when Anelka, after a poor initial performance, was benched for the second half of Thursday’s Mexico-France matchup. He did not react well to this benching, supposedly embarking upon a profanity-laced tirade against his coach. It’s unclear just how audible Anelka’s tirade was initial reports suggested that Anelka was shouting at Domenech, while subsequent reports have suggested that Anelka was speaking quietly and under his breath.
Regardless, it wasn’t Domenech that was responsible for Anelka’s departure. Domenech wanted to keep the matter in-house and deal with Anelka privately. But the French Football Federation, the governing body of soccer in France, were extremely upset with Anelka over the incident and were the catalysts for removing him.
The situation did not end there. In protest of Anelka’s dismissal, the French team refused to participate in a public training session in front of hundreds of fans. This only furthered the chasm between the players and their coach, as Domenech referred to this protest as “unspeakably stupid.” The situation became so dire that even French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stepped in. Sarkozy asked France’s Sports Minister to stay in South Africa to deal with the situation.
Perhaps the craziest aspect of all of this is that while all of this was happening, France was not, at the time, eliminated from World Cup play. If they had been able to defeat host nation South Africa, a path still existed for them to make it to the Round of 16. Unfortunately for them, they lost to South Africa today, so the elimination thing took care of itself.
In an interesting coincidence, this marks the second straight time a Muslim, French player has been at the center of the main controversy at the World Cup. In 2006, Zinedine Zidane famously head butted Italian Marco Materazzi in the finals of the World Cup.
Zidane was ejected from that game, and many believe that incident cost France the World Cup. Still, Zidane remains one of France’s most visible players, and like Sarkozy, has also commented on the current situation with the French team. His comments though, were very measured. “I was part of that team; I was a player for the French team. What makes me sad is that we are talking about everything but soccer.”
As far as Anelka goes, his career appears to be finished. Now that he will no longer be a participant for this year’s World Cup, reports have emerged that he may now retire.
-Agencies