Nicolas Anelka

Anelka was born 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.

Nicolas Sébastien Anelka (born 14 March 1979) is a French professional football manager and retired 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.

Anelka played 69 times at international level and won his first international honours with France at UEFA Euro 2000, and won the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup the following year.

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 acted in the 2002 film Le Boulet as a footballer named Nicolas.

He has said that when he retires 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.

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.

He was then transferred to Chelsea from Bolton for a reported £15 million in January 2008.

His failure to settle at club level limited his international appearances, but he returned to the national team for Euro 2008.

Together, they have two sons, Kais, born in 2008, and Kahil, born in 2010.

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, he had brief stints at Shanghai Shenhua, Juventus,West Bromwich Albion and Mumbai City FC.

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.

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.

Anelka is also known for his controversial relationship with French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala and attracted widespread condemnation after performing the quenelle hand gesture, created by M'bala and regarded as anti-Semitic, on the pitch when playing for West Bromwich Albion in 2013.

Anelka responded that the gesture was anti-establishment, not anti-Semitic.

An FA disciplinary hearing nonetheless banned Anelka for five matches, but found that he was not anti-Semitic and had not intended the gesture to express or promote anti-Semitism.

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.