Trending 
An Argentine football club has sparked controversy after suspending six nine-year-old players from training and stripping them of scholarships for posing in a photo with a professional player from a rival team.
The youngsters, all part of Newell’s Old Boys youth academy, took the picture with Ignacio Malcorra, a player for Rosario Central, when he attended a tournament in March to watch his son play. The children wore their Newell’s jerseys in the photo, which some fans interpreted as an act of disloyalty towards Lionel Messi’s boyhood club.
The rivalry between Rosario’s two first division sides—Newell’s Old Boys and Rosario Central—is among the fiercest in Argentina’s passionate football culture and has occasionally sparked violent clashes between supporters.
Newell’s club officials denied that the children were being punished, stating that the suspension was intended to protect them from “potential harassment.”
However, World Cup-winning Argentine coach and former Newell’s player Lionel Scaloni condemned the decision.
“We should value that these kids wanted to take a picture with a first-division player,” Scaloni said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“If we want to eradicate violence, we must do the exact opposite: encourage them to take pictures. If their dream is to play professionally one day, it should not matter which team,” he added.
Newell’s president Ignacio Astore revealed that some parents had requested their children be withdrawn from playing after receiving threats from other parents.
Carlos Panciroli, coordinator of Newell’s football academy, initially defended the suspension out of “respect” for the Newell’s jersey but later acknowledged to La Capital newspaper that “maybe we made a mistake.”
