Stoke defender Robert Huth has apologised for interactions he made on Twitter but it may not be enough for him to escape punishment.
The Football Association is set to investigate after Huth appeared to respond to a Twitter account which posts sexual images of individuals and asks users to guess their gender.
The account invites users of the social media site to guess, from cropped photographs of people in explicit poses, whether those pictured have male or female genitalia.
A series of tweets posted from Huth's official account shows the 30-year-old German apparently playing the game.
He has already received criticism from within the transgender community and may face action from the FA.
But on Friday evening the player moved to apologise on Twitter:
Clearly no offence was meant or directed to anyone, but apologies if I've offended anyone
- robert huth (@robert_huth) January 2, 2015
In October, the FA handed QPR defender Rio Ferdinand a three-match suspension, as well as a 25,000-pound fine, for comments he made on Twitter.
Ferdinand directed a jibe at a Twitter follower containing the word "sket", which is understood to be a slang term taken to mean a promiscuous girl or woman.
In its statement concerning the former England captain, the FA said Ferdinand's comment had been ''abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper'' and an aggravated breach as it ''included a reference to gender.''