Nicolas Sébastien Anelka (born 14 March 1979) is a French professional football manager and former player who played as a forward. As a player, he regularly featured in his country's national team, often scoring at crucial moments. Known for his ability to both score and assist goals, he has been described as a classy and quick player, with good aerial ability, technique, shooting, and movement off the ball, and was capable of playing both as a main striker and as a second striker.
Anelka began his career at Paris Saint-Germain, but soon moved to Arsenal. At Arsenal, he won the 1997–98 Premier League and FA Cup double. He became a first team regular and won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award the following season. He moved to Real Madrid for £22.3 million in 1999. He was part of the Real Madrid team that won the 1999–2000 UEFA Champions League, but he did not settle in well and returned to PSG in a £20 million deal. Despite regular first team football in Paris, Anelka set his eyes upon the Premier League once more, moving on loan to Liverpool in January 2002 before joining Manchester City for £13 million at the start of the 2002–03 season.
After three seasons in Manchester, he moved to Turkish club Fenerbahçe for two seasons, before returning to England to join Bolton Wanderers in deals worth £7 million and £8 million respectively. He was then transferred to Chelsea from Bolton for a reported £15 million in January 2008. At Chelsea, he won one Premier League title and two FA Cup trophies, as well as played in the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League final where he missed the decisive penalty in the shootout. In 2009, he won the Premier League Golden Boot award as the league's top goalscorer. During his transfers over the years, he has built an aggregate transfer cost of just under £90 million. After leaving Chelsea in 2012, he had brief stints at Shanghai Shenhua, Juventus, West Bromwich Albion and Mumbai City.
Anelka played 69 times at international level and won his first international honours with France at UEFA Euro 2000, also winning the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup the following year. His failure to settle at club level limited his international appearances, but he returned to the national team for Euro 2008. On 19 June 2010, he was excluded by the French Football Federation (FFF) from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa for "comments directed against the national coach, Raymond Domenech." He did not play again for the national team.
Nicolas Sébastien Anelka was born on 14 March 1979 in Le Chesnay, Yvelines, to parents who had moved from Martinique in 1974. Thereafter, they settled in Trappes, near Paris. His childhood friends from Trappes include the actors Omar Sy and Jamel Debbouze. His mother is a secretary in the local high school.
Anelka is married to Barbara Tausia, a Belgian choreographer. Together, they have two sons, Kais, born in 2008, and Kahil, born in 2010. He acted in the 2002 film Le Boulet as a footballer named Nicolas. He said that when he retired from football, he would like to work in the film industry because he has a friend in the business. He said, "I have a friend who's a producer, who makes lots of films. He recently did Astérix. So it's already agreed that I'm going to do other films. It helps to know actors and producers. It's different to football and it's something I enjoy very much because there's no ball. I like pretending to be somebody else, it's fun."
Anelka has two brothers, Claude and Didier.
After discussing religion with some childhood friends, Anelka converted to Islam in 2004 in the United Arab Emirates, taking the Muslim name of "Abdul-Salam Bilal". Anelka has said that he initially fasted during daylight hours as is required for the Muslim month of Ramadan, but "I realised I often got injured just after the period of Ramadan, so I don't observe it strictly any more". Initially, Anelka considered leaving European football to play in the UAE: "I am ready to stay here and to play for a club in the Emirates. I am not keen to go back to England or France." However, this did not come to pass and he briefly moved to Turkey instead, as well as three more English clubs.
Anelka is also known for his friendship with controversial French comedian Dieudonné and Anelka attracted widespread condemnation after performing the quenelle hand gesture, created by Dieudonné and regarded as antisemitic, on the pitch when playing for West Bromwich Albion in 2013. Anelka responded that the gesture was anti-establishment, not antisemitic. An FA disciplinary hearing nonetheless banned Anelka for five matches, but found that he was not antisemitic and had not intended the gesture to express or promote antisemitism. After West Brom 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, as well as comments made by Anelka on Twitter. In 2020, Anelka said the quenelle was only a protest against his former manager Steve Clarke, who is not Jewish.
Anelka has been the subject of the 2012 Canal+ documentary L'Entrée des Trappistes about his friendship with Sy and Debbouze, and the feature-length 2020 Netflix documentary Anelka: Misunderstood.
Anelka began his career at Paris Saint-Germain as a youth player at age 16.
In February 1997, at age 17, Anelka joined Premier League club Arsenal for a £500,000 transfer fee under newly appointed manager Arsène Wenger. The transfer caused controversy in France as Arsenal sought to sign him for free under the precedent of the recent Bosman ruling, despite there being exceptions for players under the age of 24; Wenger said this age restriction was only for domestic transfers.
His first team opportunities were limited in the 1996–97 season, but in 1997–98, he broke into the first team after a long-term injury to striker Ian Wright. In November 1997, Anelka scored his first goal for Arsenal in a 3–2 home win against Manchester United. Anelka was a key player in Arsenal's Double win of both the Premier League and FA Cup that season. Anelka scored the second goal in Arsenal's 2–0 win over Newcastle United in that season's FA Cup final.
Anelka was Arsenal's top scorer in the 1998–99 season with 17 Premier League goals. This form saw him voted the PFA Young Player of the Year, but Arsenal failed to defend their Premier League and FA Cup titles and made little progress in the UEFA Champions League. Fans turned on the striker amid transfer speculation and a perceived lack of enthusiasm, giving him the nickname "Le Sulk". During the close season, Anelka stated a desire to leave Arsenal, claiming the English press was responsible for his unhappiness in England. On 2 August 1999, he joined Real Madrid.
With regard to his time with the Gunners, Anelka later said he believes he should have never left Arsenal, a club that he has great "love" for. Of his former boss at Highbury, Arsène Wenger, Anelka is a huge admirer and a strong supporter of him. Anelka also placed at 29th in the club's compilation of the 50 Greatest Gunners of all-time. In all, he made 90 appearances for Arsenal, scoring 28 goals altogether for the club.
In the summer of 1999, Anelka moved to Real Madrid for a £22.3 million transfer fee. He took time to score for the club; on a visit to the football tabloid Marca he played a FIFA game with the staff, who then released the mocking front-page headline "Anelka finally scores a goal...on a video game". He failed to score for Real Madrid in his first five months at the club, eventually recording his first goal in the opening match of the FIFA Club World Championship against Al-Nassr on 5 January 2000. Two days later, he scored twice against Corinthians in the same competition, also missing an 81st-minute penalty kick that would have given him a hat-trick.
On 28 February 2000, Anelka scored his first La Liga goal in a 3–0 defeat of rivals Barcelona in El Clásico at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. However, in March, he was suspended by club president Lorenzo Sanz after refusing to train, because of a disagreement with head coach Vicente del Bosque. After returning to the team, Anelka scored in both legs of the Champions League semi-final to give Los Blancos a 3–2 aggregate victory over Bayern Munich and advance to the competition final. He started in the final, held at the Stade de France in his home city of Paris, as Real Madrid ran out 3–0 winners over Valencia to win an eighth European Cup.