Funeral workers pose for grinning pictures with Diego Maradona’s body inside coffin

The pictures circulated on social media in Argentina this week and left fans furious at the disrespect shown to the footballing legend whose funeral took place on Thursday

Diego Molina, one of the men, who took a photo with the body of Diego Maradona (Twitter)

Three funeral workers have prompted outrage after posing with Diego Maradona’s body while it lay inside his coffin.

The pictures circulated on social media in Argentina this week and left fans furious at the disrespect shown to the footballing legend, whose funeral took place on Thursday.

Diego Molina has been identified as the man giving a thumbs up while resting a hand on Maradona’s head in one of the images.

The other picture shows two other men standing with the body. The younger man is giving a thumbs up and smiling. In both snaps the head of the former World Cup winner is clearly displayed while in the coffin.

It is understood the pictures were taken prior to Maradona’s body being taken to Casa Rosada, the presidential palace.

Read more: Diego Maradona: Footballer who dominated the game like a god

He told TN: "My father is 75 years old and he is crying, I am crying, my brother too, we are destroyed.

“He [Molina] is not an employee here, he is a third party who only helped us load the coffin because it weighs a lot. The family chose a cedar [wood] box that is very difficult to transport and that is why we summoned him, just to carry the box.

“The three outsourced employees that we called and appear in the images, we took away their mobile phones in the morgue. We gave them back when all the work had been finished and at that moment, which was when the police called me to organise the transfer, that’s when they did it.”

Two funeral workers pose with the body of Maradona (Twitter)

Maradona's lawyer Matias Morla named Mr Molina online and has threatened legal action over the scandal.

It comes as Maradona, one of the world's greatest ever soccer players, was buried on Thursday amid a global outpouring of grief from the streets of Buenos Aires to Naples in Italy.

In a day of high emotion, the World Cup winner was taken by hearse late on Thursday to the Bella Vista cemetery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires — where his parents are also interred — for a small private ceremony of his family and close friends.

Thousands of Argentines lined the roads as the procession passed on the hour-long journey from the presidential palace in central Buenos Aires, where Maradona had lain in state during the day.