Posters featuring World Cup winning American soccer star Megan Rapinoe have been vandalized in a New York subway station in what police are investigating as a potential hate crime.

The posters inside Manhattan's Bryant Park subway station were defaced with the words 'sheman' and 'screw this ho' on Monday.

The vandal scrawled the graffiti over Rapinoe's forehead on more than six posters.

The posters have since been cleaned by the MTA.

The posters of Megan Rapinoe inside Manhattan's Bryant Park subway station were defaced with the words 'sheman' and 'screw this ho' on Monday. They are pictured above after the MTA tried to clean the graffiti

'Hate has no place in the transit system and we work hard to make the subway a welcoming, safe environment for everyone,' the MTA said.

'We referred this to NYPD which responded to investigate, our maintenance teams got the posters cleaned and we will have them replaced with new ones if necessary.'

The NYPD's Hate Crime task force is investigating the vandalism.

The vandalism appeared just one day after Rapinoe and the U.S. women' team with won their record fourth World Cup title on Sunday with their 2-0 win over Netherlands.

Rapinoe and her team showed off their World Cup trophy in Times Square on Tuesday during an appearance on ABC's 'Good Morning America'.

The vandal scrawled the graffiti over Rapinoe's forehead on more than six posters. The posters have since been cleaned by the MTA

Rapinoe could barely contain her joy as fans and media gathered outside the hotel in Lower Manhattan to get a glimpse of the champions after arriving in New York

The American team were heavily criticized for their sportsmanship during the World Cup in France.

Some complained that the Americans ran up the score, 13-0, on Thailand in the opener while others fixated on their elaborate goal celebrations.

Rapinoe was singled out for preemptively refusing a White House invitation from Donald Trump before the team had even won the tournament.

Showing her trademark confidence on Tuesday, Rapinoe confessed that winning a World Cup was never really her dream.

'I never like to call it a dream because it was something I really felt would be a reality someday,' she said Tuesday.