Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel has closed his Twitter account after receiving racist abuse online.

The Nigeria international gave the ball away in the build up to Juventus’ late equaliser in the Champions League 2-2 draw on Wednesday, and was berated by frustrated supporters in the aftermath of the incident.

The African player has now deleted his profile from the social networking site to protect himself against any further or future outbursts.

Chelsea have released a statement in support of Mikel and feel that the racist comments should be investigated by the authorities.

“We’ve been made aware of racist tweets targeted at Mikel which are totally unacceptable, disgusting and abhorrent,” an official statement.

”We’ve informed the police and support taking the strongest possible action.”

Mikel is the latest in a long line of football players to suffer racist abuse on Twitter.

Despite being a regular in the side at Stamford Bridge for over six years now, there are many sections of the Chelsea support that still worry about his lack of mobility and his ponderous decision-making on the ball as he can often play his way into trouble.

With Oriol Romeu at the club and looking to build on an impressive first campaign in England last year, time is running out for the Nigerian international to finally make the position his own once and for all.

Those haters r all bitches,  I feel sorry for mikel. KTBFFH #TeamMikel

That's the example of plastic fans. Just sad. You're supposed to get behind your players. This is not done. I can't assert it though because I remember our own Arsenal fans booing Eboue once. That was a disgusting day.

Whats even worse is Mikel was great during that match. Mistakes happen he's not a super species from another galaxy. His talent is shadowed by more entertaining attacking players, but if you focus really hard on Mikel you'll see that spark of defensive talent.