Anti-discrimination campaigner Lord Ouseley has hit out at the Football Association for allowing Nicolas Anelka to serve the remainder of his ban for a 'quenelle' gesture at the start of the Indian Super League.
Anelka was fined by a Football Association-appointed independent panel and handed a five-match ban after it was decided that the gesture he performed after scoring for West Brom at West Ham on December 28, was "abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper, and that included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief".
Anelka was suspended and eventually sacked by West Brom.
With those sanctions still in place, the 35-year-old has since been allowed to join Mumbai FC ahead of the start of the Indian Super League on Sunday. The Football Association confirmed when contacted by the Press Association Sport on Friday evening the player is deemed to have already served a two-game ban while still effectively employed by West Brom before the termination of his contract.
Had Anelka moved to any other club abroad outside the governing body's domestic jurisdiction, the guidance would have also been the same, while any education course can also not be implemented unless the player returns to England.
Lord Ouseley, chairman of the Kick It Out campaign, has been left less than impressed by the whole saga. He said to Telegraph Sport: "It is almost typical of what you would expect at the FA.
"It is almost a case of, 'Good riddance, he is off our hands, we are not interested any more', when, in fact, world football should be interested in such an outrage.
"You are almost lost for words.
"That is not real justice and that is not serving the intentions of zero-tolerance with racism because it encourages people to find a way round a fairly lukewarm ban as it was."
Anelka, who claims he made the gesture in support of his friend Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, a French comedian who has been convicted seven times of anti-Semitic crimes, looks set to miss the opening three matches instead of five.
Source: PA
