French bigwig wants Anelka out

Former French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes believes renegade striker Nicolas Anelka must never play for Les Bleus again.

Anelka was sent home from the World Cup for refusing to apologise for a dressing-room rant aimed at coach Raymond Domenech.

This sparked a players' revolt, with the squad subsequently refusing to train and Les Bleus then crashed out of the tournament bottom of Group A.

Escalettes, who stepped down from his position as president in the wake of the debacle, believes that Anelka must now never play for the national side again.

"Neither I nor my successor, nor the future coach will forget what happened and everyone will ensure that he can not play for France," he told L'Equipe.

About what happened in the dressing room, Escalettes added: "I only knew what I read in L'Equipe.

"As soon as I knew, and having made a minimum of checks - a player told me that the remarks were worse than reported - I immediately punished the perpetrator of this insult."

Escalettes was speaking before a Cultural Affairs Committee of the National Assembly - the transcript of which was acquired by and published on website infosport.canalplus.fr.

Also speaking to the committee was Domenech, who was forced to explain his actions in refusing to shake the hand of South Africa coach Carlos Alberto Parreira following their 2-1 defeat.

At the time, Domenech explained it was because of comments the Brazilian had made about the manner of their qualification, courtesy of Thierry Henry's infamous handball against the Republic of Ireland.

"The whole of France being well-meaning and so quick to make moral found no fault with the accusations of Mr Parreira," he told the committee.

"It is important for me to defend the image of the France team.

"I probably did not measure the negative media coverage of my gesture.

"I probably should have told him directly and discreetly."


http://www.football365.co.za/story/0,22162,14287_6243405,00.html