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.

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.

[17] 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".

[25] In February 1997, at age 17, Anelka joined Premier League club Arsenal for a £500,000 transfer fee[26] under newly appointed manager Arsène Wenger.

[41] 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.

[42] 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.

[43] After returning to the team,[44] 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.

[45][46][47][48] 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.

[49] Anelka signed a six-year professional contract at Paris Saint-Germain in July 2000, a return to the club at which he used to play as a youth player, in a transfer deal worth £22 million.

Canal Plus, which owned Paris Saint-Germain, financed the transfer, while PSG sponsor Nike covered much of Anelka's compensation of £30–35,000 per week.

[53] However, once again, Anelka developed issues with his head coach, Luis Fernández (who was already under pressure for benching Ronaldinho due to his work ethic).

[citation needed] After two and a half years, Anelka returned to the Premier League in December 2001 to join Liverpool on a short-term loan deal until the end of the season.

He contributed to Liverpool's late push to come second in the 2001–02 FA Premier League, scoring goals against Everton,[54] Fulham,[55] Blackburn Rovers,[56] Ipswich Town,[57] and in the 2001–02 FA Cup against Birmingham City,[58] but manager Gérard Houllier opted not to offer him a permanent deal after the end of the season in favour of signing Senegalese forward El Hadji Diouf.

[59] Anelka joined Manchester City on 24 May 2002, with the £13 million transfer fee paid by manager Kevin Keegan, then a club record high.

[71] Anelka later said he would reluctantly consider leaving the club if Bolton's poor start to the 2007–08 season continued,[72] but later signed a new four-year contract lasting until 2011 on 30 August.

[77] In the 2008 Champions League final, Anelka delivered Chelsea's seventh penalty which was saved by Edwin van der Sar, resulting in Manchester United winning the competition.

His goalscoring spree won him the Golden Boot Award on 14 November 2008 for being the first player that season to score ten Premier League goals.

[80] Anelka scored his first competitive hat-trick for Chelsea against Sunderland, in a 5–0 home win on 1 November 2008, and followed this up with two braces against Blackburn Rovers, then West Bromwich Albion.

Anelka scored his first goal since January in a 1–0 win over his former club Bolton in April 2010, putting Chelsea four points ahead of second-place Manchester United.

[92] Anelka (along with Ashley Cole) joined Henning Berg in the exclusive band of players who have won the Premier League title with two different clubs.

[106] Anelka provided two assists for Drogba and headed in a late equaliser to earn Shenhua a point in a 3–3 draw with Shandong Luneng Taishan on 25 August.

The reports were quickly denied by the club, which confirmed Anelka would miss one match and that he had left the session early on compassionate grounds following the death of his agent.

[114] On 28 August 2013, it was announced that since completing his week of compassionate leave, Anelka had decided to remain with the club and would begin training the following day in preparation for West Brom's forthcoming match against Swansea City.

During his goal celebration he performed a quenelle, a hand gesture popularized by his comedian friend Dieudonné, described by some critics as an inverted Nazi salute.

Anelka was not selected for the 1998 FIFA World Cup-winning squad, but quickly became France's first choice centre forward during the UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying campaign, scoring the opening goal in France's 3–2 win over Russia on his first international start[128] and scoring both goals in a comfortable 2–0 win over England at Wembley Stadium in February 1999.

He also formed part of the squad which won the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup, where he scored his only tournament goal in a 5–0 win over hosts South Korea in the opening game.

[130] In November 2002, he rejected an emergency call-up by Jacques Santini to face Serbia and Montenegro and was barred by the manager; in February 2004 he eyed a return for the UEFA Euro 2004 squad as Djibril Cissé was suspended.

[143] Following criticism of his positioning by Domenech, Anelka is reported to have said, "Va te faire enculer, sale fils de pute,"[144] meaning, "Go fuck yourself, you dirty son of a whore.

"[145] The incident was later reported by the media, and the player refused to publicly apologise when asked to do so by French Football Federation (FFF) president Jean-Pierre Escalettes.

[150] After retiring as a player, Anelka joined the technical staff of Dutch Eredivisie side Roda JC in February 2017, claiming he wanted to help his friend and the club's shareholder Aleksey Korotaev.