Fifa Racism Probe: after some Germany fans were seen wearing black face paint and afro wigs for World Cup clash with Ghana

Fifa is investigating after photographs circulated of fans wearing black face makeup at Germany’s match against Ghana.

Photographs taken at the match showed two men, apparently Germany fans, with blackened faces in the Fortaleza stadium on Saturday.

Fifa said yesterday that its disciplinary committee is considering opening a case. It will also consider a report by the Fifa match commissioner, Eggert Magnusson of Iceland.

'We do not respect any discriminatory messages,' Fifa spokesperson Delia Fischer said.

‘We always take any evidence or submissions to our disciplinary committee. It is the disciplinary committee that will meet,’ a spokesman told The Guardian.

‘If they see any grounds they will open proceedings. Then it is up to the disciplinary commission to take the decision.’

FIFA holds national football federations responsible for their fans’ behaviour inside stadiums.

In a second incident, a man ran onto the pitch in the second half of the 2-2 draw.

The shirtless fan, who is reportedly from Poland had an email address and telephone number written on his back.

Ghana's former Portsmouth and Sunderland midfielder Sully Muntari, who currently plays for AC Milan, embraced the pitch invader before being detained by stewards and removed from the field.

Brazil’s organising committee spokesman Saint-Clair Milesi said the man was detained by local authorities.

Germany has a tradition of blacking up, often for theatrical purposes, that despite its burgeoning ethnic minority population and the fact that it is now unthinkable in the UK and the U.S., still continues to this day.

In January last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel courted controversy after she posed for pictures with carol singers who had applied black face paint to pose as the Three Kings.

It was part of the Sternsinger, or star singer, tradition of Dreikönigstag, the Three Kings' Day, when children go from house to house in groups of four and sing carols for charity.

It is tradition that one of the kings is black.

Prior to that, the Olivier award-winning playwright Bruce Norris in 2012 banned a Berlin theatre from staging one of his plays after learning that it intended to 'black up' a white actress for a lead role.

In an open letter he called on fellow playwrights to boycott any German theatre which still practices what he described as an 'asinine tradition'.

'Whatever rationale the German theatre establishment might offer for their brazenly discriminatory practice is of no interest to me,' he wrote.

'For, as little power as we playwrights have, we always retain one small power and that is the power to say no. To say, no thank you, I’d rather not have my work performed in Germany, today, under those conditions.'