Carlton Cole fined £20,000 for Twitter outburst at fan

The FA has fined West Ham's Carlton Cole £20,000 after the 31-year-old Hammers' forward launched a Twitter tirade against Spurs supporter Stuart Hardy after the two clubs' Premier League clash on February 22 at White Hart Lane.

The game finished 2-2 and later Hardy sent Cole a message that read: "Hi @CarltonCole1 when your own team-mates don't kick the ball out when you're lying injured for 2 mins, you think it's time to call it a day?"

Cole didn't take the tweet well, replying with a short and unequivocal message: "F off you c***."

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His response might have had something to do with the fact he was down with a hamstring injury from which he has yet to return.

Though the former Chelsea striker later deleted the tweet, many of his 100,000 followers had already seen and retweeted the insult, and the FA charged Cole "with breaching FA Rules in relation to social media."

On Thursday afternoon, the FA released a statement in which it said that after an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing, Cole had been fined £20,000.

He "was also severely warned as to his future conduct", a reference to the fact that this is not the first time Cole has fallen foul of FA social media rules.

He was hit with a similar fine in 2011 after posting a tweet during England's friendly against Ghana, which probably struck him as funny at the time: "Immigration has surrounded the Wembley premises! I knew it was a trap! 'The only way to get out safely is to wear an England jersey and paint your face w/ the St George's flag!"

The FA took a dim view of his banter, and will be hoping that the combined total of £40,000 in fines should get the message across that words can have consequences for the Premier League's top footballers.