Balotelli has until 6pm on Friday to respond to the governing body’s request, after which time they will make a decision on whether to charge him or not.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, in welcoming the FA’s involvement, called the player’s actions “troubling” despite his contrition and apology.

“Balotelli’s sharing of images which use unacceptable language and appeal to classic antisemitic tropes is troubling,” said the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews Vivian Wineman.

“We were pleased to see his immediate retraction and apology but such language has no place in public discourse.

“We welcome the decision by the FA to investigate this matter.”

Balotelli reposted an image from the computer game Super Mario on his Instagram page with the heading “Don’t be a racist”.

The text then read: “Be like Mario. He’s an Italian plumber, created by Japanese people, who speaks English and looks like a Mexican, he jumps like a black man and grabs coins like a Jew.”

Balotelli in hot water for Super Mario post.pic.twitter.com/HDzCjzZYjI

— British Expatriates (@britishexpatria) December 2, 2014

After criticism began to mount online the 24-year-old deleted the offending item and responded on his Twitter account: “My Mom is jewish so all of u shut up please”. He also described reposting the image as “my Unlucky moment”.

The Liverpool striker issued an apology on Tuesday morning, claiming he was attempting to be “anti-racist with humour” but the 24-year-old is now facing the prospect of a misconduct charge.

The Professional Footballers’ Association issued a statement in which it said: “We strongly condemn all discriminatory language used in any context.”

An investigation has begun and part of that involves the FA asking the player for an explanation, which they have now done.

FA guidelines regarding when to charge someone over a comment on social media state “deleting an inappropriate posting, whilst advisable, does not necessarily prevent disciplinary action being taken”.

The minimum FA ban for a race-related offence is five matches.

Liverpool have been embroiled in a racism row before when former striker Luis Suarez was banned for eight matches for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra in September 2011.