Morganella expelled from Olympics after racist tweet

Switzerland defender Michel Morganella has been expelled from the Olympic Games for posting a racist message on Twitter.

The Swiss Olympic delegation opted to send Morganella home after the 23-year-old labelled the South Koreans “a bunch of mongoloids” in the wake of Switzerland’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of the Asian side.

“Michel Morganella gravely insulted and discriminated against the South Korean people and their football team with his highly offensive comments on Twitter,” said Switzerland’s head coach Gian Gilli.

“We condemn his comments, which are in fundamental violation of the IOC’s Olympic charter and Swiss Olympic’s own ethics charter.”

The account has since been deleted and Morganella, who plays for Serie A side Palermo, has apologised for the incident.

He said: “I made a huge mistake after the disappointing result.

“I wish to apologise to the people in South Korea and their team, but also to the Swiss delegation and Swiss football in general. I obviously accept the consequences for my actions.”

Morganella is the second athlete to be sent home from London 2012 due to an offensive tweet, following on from Greek triple jumper Paraskevi Papachristou.

She was deemed to have mocked African immigrants and expressed support for a far-right party on the micro blogging site before apologising for the “unfortunate and tasteless joke”.

Switzerland will look to put the incident behind them as they take on Mexico in their final Group B fixture today (1^st August) knowing that they must win to have any chance of progressing to the knock-out stages.

 Laurence Taylor, Olympics correspondent