Claims a big shock to Moyes

quality players, the best we can get. You can see the players we have signed over the year. It doesn’t matter where they come from.”

Express Sport reported yesterday that the FA are investigating senior figures at the club as well as Henry over the sending of the email.

Moyes described Henry’s claims as “a massive shock” and insisted any suggestion the directive had come from him was wide of the mark – because he had been trying to sign Cameroon-born Ibrahim Amadou from Lille and Algeria striker Islam Slimani from Leicester before the close of the transfer window on Wednesday.

He said Henry had been involved in the selection of Amadou and Slimani as transfer targets. Henry had also been on Moyes’s recruitment team when he was manager of Everton, who had a number of key African players.

“The players there would know Tony,” he said. “Yakubu, Joseph Yobo, Steven Pienaar, Magaye Gueye, Victor Anichebe – they were all very much part of our environment and very important players for me.”

West Ham have only two African-born players, Cheikhou Kouyate of Senegal and Arthur Masuaku of DR Congo, but others are of African descent and Moyes said he had approached them to clear the air ahead of today’s match at Brighton.

“I had a frank conversation with them, but that will remain private,” he said. “All I can tell you is the players have worked really well. Whether it’s the British boys, Argentinan boys, African boys, they have all been very good. Hopefully we can move on.

“We’re trying to give everybody at the club a real lift and we’re trying to show the supporters we’re doing things the right way.

“We want to keep it going but obviously we don’t need incidents that have happened recently.

“I’ve no doubt that racism does happen in football but in all my time in the game I’ve seen very, very little.”