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Having got himself into a completely unnecessary and potentially damaging racism row on Twitter yesterday, Rio Ferdinand tried to get himself out of it using the same medium early this morning.

The tweet-happy Manchester United defender had kept his silence on the social networking site after John Terry was found not guilty of racially abusing his brother Anton on Friday, but he plunged head first into the row yesterday by having a pop at Ashley Cole, who reluctantly testified on Terry’s behalf last week and also admitted in court that he considered himself a close friend of Rio’s.

That close friendship looks to have been all but terminated after Rio rather ill-advisedly responded and seemed to endorse a tweet posted yesterday that described Ashley Cole as a 'choc-ice', not just a delicious ice-cream but a phrase commonly used to describe somebody who is a traitor to their race, somebody who is black on the outside but white on the inside.

The tweet, posted by Twitter user @CarltonEBanks (surely not Alfonso Ribeiro in disguise), read: "Looks like Ashley Cole's going to be their choc ice. Then again he's always been a sell out. Shame on him."

Ferdinand responded in a tweet: "I hear you fella! Choc ice is classic! hahahahahahha!!"

Ferdinand’s Twitter movements generated enough of a stir to draw a response from Ashley Cole through his lawyers last night, which read: "Ashley Cole has been made aware of the discussion following comments appearing on Twitter and wishes to make it clear that he and Rio Ferdinand are good friends and Ashley has no intention of making any sort of complaint. Ashley appreciates that tweeting is so quick it often results in off-hand and stray comments."

Ferdinand himself, meanwhile, moved to distance himself from any potential racism row this morning by posting another tweet saying that the “choc-ice” term was not intended as a racist insult, but to describe someone “who is being fake”.

And if his three million + followers didn’t get the message, the “So there” at the end of the tweet really appeared to ram it home.

Ferdinand may feel that his brother Anton was the victim of a grave injustice in court last week, but he really isn’t helping himself with this sort of carry-on.

He should stick to tweeting about the more mundane matters he usually concerns himself with, annoying and all as they are at times.