A group of teenage Israeli ultimate frisbee players were banned from an international competition in Belgium last week after a vandal scrawled anti-Semitic remarks near their playing field – and the heartbroken children and coaches are wondering why.

The Israeli delegation – which included 33 players aged between 13 and 16 and nine adults – had been training and preparing for years in the run-up to the Ultimate Youth European Championships in Ghent, Belgium, according to Chen Bankirer, president of the Israeli Flying Disc Association.

But just as the team, which had traveled thousands of miles to get to the tournament, was getting ready for its opening matches on Tuesday morning, the tournament director informed them that someone had spray-painted the words “Boycott Israel Now!” near their field of play.

Then the mayor and the city police intervened and told the team that they could not participate.

Daniel Ben David, a 22-year-old assistant coach who lives near Tel Aviv, said the Ghent police chief told the adults: “This is your war, not mine,” before adding that their presence would cause problems in Belgium.

“To be honest, it’s just very anti-Semitic,” the coach added. “We just want our kids to play. We wanted to win this tournament, we worked for three years to prepare for it. And to have it stolen from the kids is terrible.”

Bankirer told the Washington Post that local officials tried to claim they were concerned about the team’s safety.

“They basically told us, ‘You’re not going to play.’ The police and the city claim the fields are too open and they can’t protect the fields (or) ensure the safety of the tournament,” he said.

“We heard the news at 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning,” he said. “We were sad. We were waiting for (the children) to wake up. And then we called them all together and told 33 children that they could not play because they were Israelis. And they were deeply heartbroken.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Culture and Sports tried to intervene, but the final decision to exclude the teams was made on Tuesday evening, according to the Jerusalem Post.

To make matters worse, the city also banned children and coaches from watching the games as spectators.

“I think they didn’t want people in the area to know that there were Israeli Jews there,” Bankirer said.

Ben David said it was heartbreaking to tell the children they were not allowed to play.

“Seeing their faces when we told them the news … it was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“They were devastated,” he continued. “I had to keep up the facade of being strong and good, but deep down I was so hurt and disappointed to see them like that – they deserved to play.”

Itamar Kaplun, the team’s 16-year-old captain, said to call the city’s decision shocking would be an understatement.

“It was like everything I had worked for just fell apart,” Kaplun said. “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t speak.”

Up until then, there had been no problems in the tournament, he said, and the Israeli team had gotten along well with all the other participants.

“I was surprised that they just took that away from us, 15-year-old kids who had worked for three years,” he said. “And to find out in such a hard way – because there was no way to just say it – was heartbreaking.”

“It’s a kind of reality that you have to get used to as a Jew at some point.”

Bankirer said he and the coaches had contacted both tournament organizers and local officials but had come to no conclusion.

The European Ultimate Federation blamed the city for the decision and said it had nothing to do with it, he added. And the city will not back down from its decision.

Instead, Bankirer took the children to the nearby Jewish fields, where they spent their time playing Ultimate Frisbee on their own.

“Basically, we just tried,” he said. “So we played.”

But the story is probably not over yet.

Bankirer said they have filed a formal appeal with the tournament organizers and plan to sue for the insult.

But the damage has been done.

“That should be the focus – and the basis – of every single sport,” he said. “An international event must be able to include everyone. Otherwise it doesn’t exist.”