West Ham's Carlton Cole accepts FA charge for tweet

Cole had until 6pm on Thursday night to respond to the charge of making a comment which "was abusive and/or insulting and/or improper and/or brings the game into disrepute".

A FA independent commission will now meet to decide his sanction, with no limit to the possible punishment, Press Association Sport understands.

The charge related to Cole's involvement in a Twitter altercation with a Spurs fan following West Ham's 2-2 Barclays Premier League draw at White Hart Lane on February 22.

The 31-year-old, who has 122,000 followers on the social networking site, was responding to a message from Spurs supporter Stuart Hardy that read: "Hi @CarltonCole1 when your own team-mates don't kick the ball out when you're lying injured for 2 mins, you think it's time to call it a day?" (sic)

Cole replied: "F off you c***" before later deleting the tweet.

The former Chelsea striker has been in trouble before for previous postings on social media and this may be taken into account in his punishment.

He was fined £20,000 by the FA in April 2011 for a tweet he posted during England's friendly against Ghana that read: "Immigration has surrounded the Wembley premises! I knew it was a trap!

"The only way to get out safely is to wear an England jersey and paint your face w/ the St George's flag!"