French forward Djibril Cisse has been subjected to racist abuse on his social networking Twitter account over his move from Lazio to English side Queens Park Rangers.
Some Lazio fans left messages including racial slurs on his account and Cisse, who is black, retweeted the messages, saying he wanted to "show how some people are ... stupid".
A clearly upset Cisse, who used some choice language in his responses, added: "Wow, it's the idiot parade today. I'm really shocked, you two guys are ... brainless and you should be ... ashamed."
The ugly incident followed hot on the heels of racist chanting by Juventus fans during their match with Udinese on Saturday.
Racism is a problem in Italian football circles and Italy forward Mario Balotelli, who is of Ghanaian origin, was racially abused several times by Juve fans before he left for Manchester City a year and a half ago.
He was also the subject of abuse from Italian and Romanian fans while on international duty for a friendly in Austria, while he accused Chievo fans of abusing him on another occasion.
Serbian Sinisa Mihjlovic was the victim of racist abuse earlier this season when he was coach of Fiorentina, his own club's fans putting up a banner making a derogatory remark about his origins.
In 2007, Frenchman Louis Saha, who is black and had travelled to Rome with his then club Manchester United for a Champions League tie, accused Italian football authorities of not doing enough to tackle the racism problem.
As well as Juve, Brescia and Cagliari have been fined by football authorities in recent years due to their fans' racist chanting.
However, those fines have not exceeded 25,000 euros ($32,800), which is a paltry amount for an Italian top-flight side.
Juve were forced to play one match behind closed doors in 2008-09 and suffered a partial stand closure in another match the next season due to their fans' persistent targeting of Balotelli.
Source: AFP
