Merseyside Police have reportedly opened an investigation into racist abuse aimed at Liverpool star Raheem Sterling on Twitter.
The 20-year-old is close to joining Manchester City in a reported £49m deal.
The England international has been widely expected to leave Anfield after refusing to sign a new £100,000-a-week contract earlier this year.
With Sterling's exit edging ever closer, it appears that a number of fans have expressed their anger in a string of vile posts, one of which was directed at the footballer's three-year-old daughter Melody Rose, on social media.
According to the Daily Mail, on Sunday, one user tweeted: "I'm going to hunt your daughter down and lock her up you f****** n*****! Betraying my club for money, typical f****** b*****!"
Another wrote: "f****** black c*** literally hope he f****** dies snake c***. He's not English he's Jamaican."
A Merseyside Police spokesman is quoted as saying: "The language used in these tweets is abhorrent. We are taking the incident extremely seriously and an investigation by detectives in Liverpool CID is ongoing.
"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."
Sterling joined Liverpool's youth system in 2010 from Queens Park Rangers.
Danielle Joynson
