World Cup 2010 - Anelka suspended for 18 games
Reuters - Tue, 17 Aug 14:53:00 2010
Buzz Up!
Nicolas Anelka has been banned for 18 matches for his role in France's World Cup revolt, a punishment that could spell the end of his international career.


The 31-year-old striker was banished from the France squad at the World Cup in South Africa for insulting coach Raymond Domenech at half-time of a 2-0 defeat by Mexico in Polokwane, his 69th international appearance.
The outcry sparked by his foul-mouthed comments and the length of the ban imposed on him by the disciplinary commission of the French Football Federation mean the Chelsea player is unlikely to wear his country's colours again.
The fact that he did not attend Tuesday's hearing also suggests that Anelka, who scored 14 goals for France and never quite lived up to huge expectations, has accepted that his international days are over.
"We wanted Anelka's sanction to set an example," disciplinary commission president Jean Mazzella said.
Anelka was one of five players involved in Tuesday's hearing but the only one to be given such a heavy ban.
World Cup captain Patrice Evra was banned for five matches for leading a boycott of a training session over Anelka's banishment.
The FFF banned Franck Ribery for three games and Jeremy Toulalan for one. Eric Abidal escaped without sanction.
The five players, accused of playing a leading role in the World Cup revolt, had been summoned by the FFF for a hearing at the ruling body's headquarters in Paris.
Like Anelka, Ribery, whose Bayern Munich club had refused to release him, did not attend the hearing. The other three were present.
France caused a scandal at the World Cup by refusing to train at their base in Knysna, Western Cape, after Anelka was sent home in disgrace.
"The players now realise that they should never have done such a thing," former France team director Jean-Louis Valentin, who testified during the hearing, said as he left the FFF building.
"We have to acknowledge that they deserve another chance, Let's close this chapter and start another one," he added.
None of the players talked to the media after the hearing, during which Domenech and outgoing FFF president Jean-Pierre Escalettes also spoke.
Two days after boycotting training, France suffered a shock first-round exit from the World Cup with a 2-1 defeat by hosts South Africa.
Laurent Blanc, who succeeded the controversial Domenech as coach after the World Cup, refused to pick any of the 23 players involved in the boycott for his first game in charge, a 2-1 defeat in Norway earlier this month.
France start their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign with a home game against Belarus on September 3.
Reuters

Meanwhile Thuram Said "Evra Deserves Life Ban"

http://eurosport.yahoo.com/17082010/58/world-cup-2010-anelka-suspended-18-games.html

He should just retire from international football

This guy has always been on and off with the French team This is the last straw that broke the camel's back!

Nicolas Anelka said he was left "doubled up with laughter" by an 18-match ban handed down to him yesterday, saying he has moved on from France's World Cup fiasco and branding those who run French football "clowns".

In his first public comments on the ban, which in effect brought to an end an international career that earned the 31-year-old 69 caps for les Bleus, the Chelsea player said he had already made up his mind never to play for France again after he was sent home from South Africa in June.

"Who told them that I wanted to play in blue again?" Anelka asked. "I should not even have been mentioned by this kind of commission. For me, ever since the South Africa World Cup, the French team is part of the past."

The striker, whose reported abuse of the former coach Raymond Domenech during France's match against Mexico led to his expulsion from the tournament and a subsequent players' revolt on his behalf, did not show up to a hearing of the French Football Federation (FFF)'s disciplinary council yesterday, during which his and four other players' punishments were discussed.

In an interview with the newspaper France Soir, he refused to accord the FFF's investigation into the events surrounding the mutiny any significance. "For me, this whole thing with the commission is an aberration, a masquerade to make sure they don't lose face," he said. "They have punished a void, as Nicolas Anelka never existed in this pitiful and colourful affair. I repeat: the page with les Bleus was turned on 19 June when I was evicted from Knysna."

Referring to the French football authorities, he added: "They are real clowns, these people , I am doubled up with laughter." The FFF also punished Patrice Evra, Franck Ribéry and Jérémy Toulalan with bans of between one and five matches for their roles in the boycott. Eric Abidal escaped without a ban.

Anelka, who became prominent at international level as a teenager with both goals in a 2-0 win over England at Wembley in 1999, spoke optimistically about his future at the club he joined in January 2008. "With Chelsea , I play in blue every weekend and that's more than enough for me," he said.

His agent, Doug Pingisi, was equally keen to play down the FFF's ban, albeit in less flippant tones. "With Nico, we had a very clear career plan," he said. "The idea was that he would take his leave internationally after the World Cup, whatever its result, which ended up being the one that everyone knows."