The goalkeeper for a Premier League soccer club told a Football Association panel that he “did not even know” what a Nazi salute was when he appeared to make the gesture in an Instagram photo posted by a teammate in January, according to a newly released report.
Wayne Hennessey, who plays for the English club Crystal Palace, repeatedly denied making the racist salute, saying it was “an innocent gesture to attract the attention of the photographer.”
“Improbable as that may seem to those of us of an older generation, we do not reject that assertion as untrue,” the association’s independent regulatory commission said in its final report, which was completed April 4 and made public this week.
The photo, taken during a dinner on Jan. 5, shows the Welsh player with this right arm raised at a 45-degree angle and his left hand held over his mouth, which could be interpreted as a mock mustache similar to Adolf Hitler’s. The 32-year-old athlete claims he was simply trying to get the attention of the waiter who was taking the picture.
“In fact, when cross-examined about this Mr. Hennessey displayed a very considerable — one might even say lamentable — degree of ignorance about anything to do with Hitler, Fascism and the Nazi regime,” the report said. “Regrettable though it may be that anyone should be unaware of so important a part of our own and world history, we do not feel we should therefore find he was not telling the truth about this.”
The panel essentially told the goalkeeper to study a bit more.
“All we would say (at the risk of sounding patronising) is that Mr. Hennessey would be well advised to familiarise himself with events which continue to have great significance to those who live in a free country,” the report states.
Hennessey is in the first year of a three-year, $7-million contract with Crystal Palace.
