Swiss Soccer Player Michel Morganella Sent Home for Twitter Remark

LONDON — Another athlete has been thrown out of the Olympics for making disparaging remarks on Twitter. On Monday, the Swiss Olympic delegation said that it had sent home Michel Morganella, a soccer player, for making insulting remarks about South Koreans after the South Korean soccer team beat the Swiss, 2-1, on Sunday.

Switzerland's Michel Morganella was expelled from the London Olympics on Monday for sending a racist message on Twitter after his team's defeat by South Korea.

In a statement, Gian Gilli, the head of the Swiss Olympic delegation, said that Morganella, 23, had “said something insulting and discriminatory” about the South Korean soccer team. “We condemn these remarks,” he said, adding that they “contradict the Olympic Charter.”

In a separate statement, Morganella said that he had “made a huge mistake” by sending the Twitter message after the game and that he was “truly sorry for the people in South Korea, for footballers, but also for the Swiss delegation and the Swiss football in general.”

Morganella’s message has been removed from his Twitter account, though Swiss news media quoted a message in French slang that expressed hostility to South Koreans and questioned their intelligence.

Last week, a Greek triple jumper was thrown off the team for posting a derogatory comment on Twitter about African immigrants in Greece. The athlete, Paraskevi Papahristou, 23, posted the comment in Greek on July 22, and it was resent on Twitter over 100 times.

The expulsions highlight the growing tension around the use of social media by athletes. Some groups like the United States Olympic Committee have established guidelines and training, while the International Olympic Committee has said that “posting, blogs and tweets should at all times conform to the Olympic spirit and fundamental principles of Olympism as contained in the Olympic Charter, be dignified and in good taste, and not contain vulgar or obscene words or images.”