© EuroFootball.com
The law enforcement in the United Kingdom has started an investigation related to attacks on social media directed against England football team players Ashley Young and Ashley Cole, reports "SkySports".
These two players missed penalty kicks in the "Euro 2012" quarter-final match against Italy, so after the penalty shoot-out, England was forced to leave the tournament.
After the match, the social network "Twitter" was flooded with insults targeting these footballers, some of which were racist.
"We are concerned about how A. Cole and A. Young are being mistreated on the social network "Twitter". These players gave everything for the national team in the European Championship, so the messages posted online are disgusting and unacceptable. We support the police investigation to find out who is behind them," - says the statement of the English Football Association (FA).
"We have been informed about the racist messages on the "Twitter" page after the England team's match, we have started an investigation. There have been no arrests so far," - said a police representative.
Some of those who wrote offensive messages soon after the announcement of the investigation began to apologize and claim that they were just joking.
According to the police, most of the insulting messages spread from users registered in London.
This is not the first case this year when the British police have launched an investigation into racist insults on "Twitter" directed at a footballer.
In March, a 21-year-old student from Wales was jailed for 56 days for racist insults on the internet directed at "Bolton" defender Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a heart attack during a match.
