Paul Gascoigne pleads guilty over racist comment

Gascoigne, 49, was due to stand trial at Dudley Magistrates Court on Monday charged with using “threatening or abusive words or behaviour” towards a security guard.

But having initially pleaded not guilty in June, Gascoigne changed his plea.

He was ordered to pay a £1,000 fine as well as £1,000 in compensation.

The incident occurred during ‘An Evening With Gazza’ in Wolverhampton on November 30.

Gascoigne, who played for Tottenham, Newcastle and Lazio amongst other clubs during his career, said he could not tell if a black security guard was “smiling or not” as he stood in a dark corner of the stage.

The BBC reported that District Judge Graham Wilkinson told the former England international: "Mr Rowe was clearly humiliated on stage, as part of an act.

"As a society it is important that we challenge racially-aggravated behaviour in all its forms.

"It is the creeping 'low-level' racism that society still needs to challenge. "A message needs to be sent that in the 21st century society that we live in, such action, such words will not be tolerated.

"It is not acceptable to laugh words like this off as some form of joke."