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Wayne Hennessey: Crystal Palace goalkeeper did not know what Nazi salute was
A Football Association panel has found Crystal Palace goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey didn’t know what a Nazi salute was after he was charged with making the offensive gesture.
Earlier this month, an independent regulatory commission said it couldn’t prove the charge against Hennessey, meaning he would face no further action.
The photo of the Welsh international with his right arm in the air was put on his team mate Max Meyer’s Instagram story on January 5 following their FA Cup win against Grimsby. Hennessey said the resemblance was completely coincidental.
Hennessey’s explanation was that he had "waved and shouted at the person taking the picture to get on with it" and "put my hand over my mouth to make the sound carry."
The panel said Hennessey was "able to corroborate" his explanation using photographs, including one that showed his right arm raised and left hand across his mouth in a "similar way" to the photo posted on Instagram, as well as photos of him on the pitch making similar movements to get the attention of his team-mates.
The regulatory commission has now published its written reasons for the decision saying Hennessey showed a "lamentable degree of ignorance" about Adolf Hitler, fascism and the Nazi regime and said he would be well advised “to familiarise himself with events which continue to have great significance to those who live in a free country."
"Improbable as that may seem to those of us of an older generation, we do not reject that assertion as untrue," said the panel.
"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.
"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.
It agreed that the FA was "entirely justified" in bringing the case but that "rather than giving a Nazi salute, we think it more likely that Mr Hennessey was, as he says, trying to shout at and to catch the attention of the waiter.”
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