Merseyside police have opened an investigation into the online abuse directed towards Liverpool's Raheem Sterling after a deal was agreed with Manchester City for the player.
Sterling has come in for flak for some time after refusing to sign a new contract at Anfield but the abuse hurled at him today has crossed the line and then some.
Racist comments, as well as threats towards his three-year-old daughter, were sent to the 20-year-old England international via Twitter last night.
One Tweet read: "@Sterling31 I’m going to hunt your daughter down and lock her up you f***ing n****r! Betraying my club for money, typical f***ing blacks.”
A Merseyside Police spokesman told
The Liverpool Echo: “The language used in these tweets is abhorrent.
“We are taking the incident extremely seriously and an investigation by detectives in Liverpool CID is on-going.
“People who use the internet to target others and who commit criminal offences such as harassment or hate crime in doing so are not beyond the law and can expect to be brought to justice.”
