On Sunday night, England dropped out of Euro 2012 in a quarterfinal against Italy. After 120 minutes of play, without any score, the teams went into a penalty shootout which saw Ashley Cole and Ashley Young both miss their attempts. The two players, who are both black, drew heavy racist abuse on Twitter which is now being investigated by British police.

Soon after the game had come to a disappointing finish for England fans, Twitter user @Lapwnage, later identified as “Steve”, took to the popular social networking site to voice his grievances. Referring to Italian player Andrea Pirlo he said, “[he] could give those two black m******* Ashley Young and Ashley Cole a lesson or two,” adding later on that they were “‘worthless n******’ who ‘should be deported to Africa’”. Below is a screenshot user @Mussiek1 posted of more of Steve’s racist tweets.

His comments quickly drew criticism from other users, one of whom he called a “smelly Paki”. Sensing that he may have been in danger of prosecution he repented, saying, “[j]ust a joke, you guys need to relax, police know I was kidding around and they won’t bother me hopefully.” He was wrong.

“We are aware of alleged racist comments on Twitter following last night’s England game and have launched an investigation,” said a spokesperson for the West Midlands Police (MPS). “There have been no arrests at this early stage…The MPS is examining possible offences under Section 18/19 Public Order Act 1986.”

Some people might recall the case of 21-year-old student Liam Stacey who was jailed for 56 days earlier this year after tweeting, “LOL…F*** Muamba. He’s dead!!!”, and also racially abusing two other users. Classy.

Steve has since deactivated his @Lapwnage account and is presumably hiding under a bridge in a remote location. Moral of the story? Learn how the internet works before posting offensive, backward comments for the entire world to see, after all it was a member of the public who alerted the police to the abusive comments. Oh, and don’t be a racist douche, there never was a time, or place for it. And there never will be.

[Source: Twitter, Mashable, Daily Mail]