Samir Nasri launched a foul-mouthed tirade against a French AFP journalist, after France crashed out 2-0 to holders Spain in the European championship quarter-final on Saturday.

The player, who during France’s opening group game with England mouthed “shut your mouth” to television cameras in a message aimed at a L’Equipe journalist who had written a critical article of him that upset his sick mother, lost his cool after the defeat.

The journalist asked the Manchester City midfielder in the mixed zone at the Donbass Arena, Donetsk, for his assessment of the match but Nasri declined, then commenting that the press always looked “to write about sh**”.

The reporter said politely that in that case he did not want to speak to him, upon which Nasri returned and among a string of foul mouthed phrases called him a ‘son of a bitch’, adding: “There you go, now you’ll be able to say I’ve been badly brought up.”

France’s final group match, which they lost to Sweden, was reportedly marked by a dressing-room bust-up, with coach Laurent Blanc clashing with Hatem Ben Arfa and Alou Diarra said to have been involved in an angry exchange of words with Nasri.

But the French camp waved away any suggestion of ill-feeling or comparisons with an infamous player mutiny against former coach Raymond Domenech in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.