Suspended.

Argentina captain Pablo Matera has come out and said he is “deeply ashamed” today after he was stripped of the Pumas captaincy and suspended along with two other players over racist content they tweeted several years ago was unearthed.

Second-row Guido Petti and hooker Santiago Socino were also suspended just weeks after Matera led Argentina to a famous win over the All Blacks in the Rugby Championship.

The tweets, which have since been deleted, have been translated into English, and in them, Matera spoke of “running over blacks” with his car and made xenophobic comments about Bolivians and Paraguayans.

One of the racist tweets from 2012 is believed to have read:

“Nice morning to go out in the car to tread over blacks.”

Another tweet translated:

“South Africa baby! At last, I’m leaving this country full of blacks. Ouch!’”

Petti referred to his domestic worker as a “primate” and spoke of “blacks” stealing mobile phones and wallets.

The Argentina Rugby Union (ARU) said that although the posts were several years old and did “not represent the personal integrity that the three have shown during their current period with the Pumas” – they had to take immediate action.

“The Argentina Rugby Union condemns any instance of hate speech and considers it unacceptable that anyone expressing those views would represent our country,” the statement said.

In an Instagram post, Matera apologised for his “barbarisms”.

“I’m sorry to everyone who was offended by the barbarisms I wrote,” the 27-year-old wrote on Instagram.

Some reports have suggested that the Tweets were uncovered and made public due to backlash in Argentina over the Pumas not doing enough to honour the late, great Diego Maradona ahead of the game with New Zealand on Saturday following the 60-year-old’s sudden passing.