Referee Mark Halsey has made an official police complaint after being abused by angry Liverpool fans on Twitter.

Halsey was in charge for the Reds' 2-1 defeat to Manchester United at Anfield and frustrated the home contingent by sending off Jonjo Shelvey and later awarding the visitors a debatable penalty.

The 51-year-old suffered from throat cancer in 2009, and it was his struggles with the illness that were the subject of the posts on the social networking site.

One tweet said: "I hope Mark Halsey gets cancer again and dies" while another from @lfcjohn259 read: "Mark Halsey should've died of cancer."

Last week a Welsh Premier League footballer who posted an abusive message about Olympic diver Tom Daley was not charged because the message was not deemed offensive enough to be worthy of criminal charges.