Italy's women's soccer team has apologized a racist tweet was made from its Twitter account.
Per The New York Post, the controversy was ignited on Thursday, August 5, when Italian team Juventus FC tweeted an image of one of their players Cecilia Salvai.
As you can see in the since-deleted post, Salvai was wearing an orange plastic cone on her head, seemingly meant to represent rice hats associated with a number of Asian cultures, while pulling back the skin at the side of her eyes to make them appear hooded.
The tweet also included three emojis, seemingly meant to represent the same action.
This picture immediately incurred a significant backlash from other social media users, who accused the soccer team of bigotry and racist stereotyping.
As a result of its extremely critical response, the picture was deleted a mere 20 minutes after being posted.
A spokesperson for the team took to Twitter later that day to write: "We sincerely apologize that our tweet, which was not meant to cause controversy or have any racial undertones, may have offended anyone.
"Juventus has always been against racism and discrimination. #DifferencesMakeTheDifference [sic]"
However, a number of Twitter users were left incredulous by the response and critical of its sincerity.
One person wrote: "The question you need to ask yourselves is how the person in the picture didn't know this was racist?
"How did the photographer not know this was racist? How did your social media handler not know this was racist?"
A second added: "Please explain in detail what it was meant to convey then."
Another wrote: "It doesn't have racist undertones, it has racist through-and-through tones."
While another quipped: "Lol undertone - that’s about the overest overtone one could have. [sic]"
Then this user stated: "But… it wasn't even racial undertones… it was just straight up racist."
Another added: "Yeah it's funny how people say they’ve always been against racism but don’t understand how this is blatantly racist and offensive.
"My grandpa didn't spend 7 years in a prison so that his culture could be laughed at by football players. Hold athletes accountable for their actions. [sic]"
In an official statement posted to its website, a spokesperson for Juventus added: "We would like to express our deepest apologies for the social post that read as racially discriminatory content on the Juventus Women's Football Twitter account yesterday."
They went on: "Juventus immediately realized that the Club had committed an unforgivable mistake, and this mistake has seriously hurt the feelings of all people who oppose racial discrimination.
"Juventus acknowledges this mistake, and the Club will make the most profound reflection and thorough review to prevent similar things from happening again."
Per The New York Times, Juventus FC was previously accused of having a culture of racism when Black striker Moise Kean was subjected to prejudiced abuse from fans.