Estate agent Savills investigates claim employee posted ‘appalling’ racist tweet aimed at England players

Estate agent Savills says it is investigating claims one of its employees posted racist abuse aimed at England players. (Reuters)

Estate agent Savills is investigating claims one of its employees posted a racist tweet aimed at England players.

Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, who all missed penalties in the shootout defeat to Italy, were subjected to online racist abuse after Sunday night’s match.

A male employee of Savills is accused of tweeting a racial slur beginning with the letter “N” to refer to the three players.

His original tweet has been deleted, as have his Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, although the post was screengrabbed and widely shared and condemned on Twitter.

In a post on Twitter, Savills wrote: “Savills is committed to eliminating discrimination and encouraging diversity amongst our workforce. 

“A full investigation will be carried out in regards to this unacceptable incident.”

It added: “Savills abhors and has zero tolerance to any form of racism and racial discrimination and is appalled by the racist comments in these tweets.

“Savills is immediately investigating and will take appropriate action.”

Watch: Boris Johnson condemns racist abuse of England players

The Metropolitan Police said it will be investigating “offensive and racist” social media posts directed towards members of the England football team following the match.

In a tweet, the force said: “We are aware of a number of offensive and racist social media comments being directed towards footballers following the Euro 2020 final.

“This abuse is totally unacceptable, it will not be tolerated and it will be investigated.”

Twitter said it had proactively removed more than 1,000 posts over the past 24 hours which violated its policy and also taken swift action to permanently suspend a number of accounts.

“The abhorrent racist abuse directed at England players last night has absolutely no place on Twitter,” a Twitter spokesperson said.

England players Jadon Sancho, left, and Marcus Rashford were subjected to online racist abuse. (Reuters)

England’s Bukayo Saka after his penalty miss aganst Italy at Wembley on Sunday. (Getty Images)

Facebook, which owns Instagram – said on Monday: “No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don’t want it on Instagram.

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“We quickly removed comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers last night and we’ll continue to take action against those that break our rules.”

The three players also received a deluge of online messages of support from fans, footballers, politicians and the Duke of Cambridge.

Boris Johnson condemned the racist abuse, but football pundit Gary Neville was among those to criticise the prime minister for refusing to condemn people who booed the England players taking a knee before the tournament began.

Watch: Gary Neville criticises Boris Johnson after racist abuse of England players