Raheem Sterling gun tattoo: Football Association stands with ‘honest and heartfelt’ England forward over furore

Sterling has a tattoo of a gun on his right leg which was put on the front page of The Sun newspaper on Tuesday morning, with the headline ‘Raheem shoots himself in foot’

The Football Association have come out in support of Raheem Sterling after the Manchester City forward found himself at the centre of an unlikely controversy over a tattoo.

Sterling has a tattoo of a gun on his right leg which was put on the front page of The Sun newspaper on Tuesday morning, with the headline ‘Raheem shoots himself in foot’. The front page described the tattoo as “sick” and linked it to gun crime.

But Sterling issued a personal defence on Instagram, saying that he is fiercely anti-gun because his father was murdered when Sterling was just two years old. On Tuesday, the FA strongly supported the 23-year-old in his stance.

“We all support Raheem Sterling and acknowledge the honest and heartfelt account he gave via Instagram last night,” an FA spokesperson said. “He and the rest of the squad are focused solely on preparing for the forthcoming World Cup.”

Sterling had written that he has “made a promise to myself I would never touch a gun in my lifetime”, and that the tattoo was a symbol of that. “I shoot with my right foot, so it has a deeper meaning”.