BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — An Argentine football club has sparked outrage by suspending six nine-year-olds from training and stripping them of scholarships after they posed for a photograph with a professional player from a rival team.

The kids, enrolled in the youth academy of Newell’s Old Boys club, had posed with Ignacio Malcorra of Rosario Central when he came to watch his son play in a tournament in March.

The boys had posed in their Newell’s jerseys, which some interpreted as an act of disloyalty to star Lionel Messi’s boyhood team.

The rivalry between the two first division clubs from the populous city of Rosario is one of the fiercest in football-crazy Argentina, and has at times degenerated into fan violence.

Newell’s denied the children were being punished, saying in a statement the measure was taken to protect them against “potential harassment.”

But Lionel Scaloni, a World Cup-winning Argentine coach and former Newell’s player, criticised the move.

“We should value that these kids wanted to take a picture with a first-division player,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

“If we want to eradicate violence, we must do the exact opposite: tell them to take the picture and, if their dream is to one day play in the first division, it doesn’t matter with” which team, he said.

Newell’s president Ignacio Astore said some parents had asked for their children not to play after receiving threats from other parents.

Carlos Panciroli, coordinator of Newell’s football academy, who had earlier defended the boys’ suspension out of “respect” of the Newell’s jersey, later conceded to La Capital newspaper that “maybe we made a mistake.”