Alexander Isak cannot terminate his contract at Newcastle to force a transfer to Liverpool this summer using a FIFA rule revised after Lassana Diarra’s court case. Article 17 of FIFA’s Regulations on the Transfer and Status of Players was rewritten following a court case last year which ruled their previous wording breached EU law.

The increasingly toxic transfer saga dragging him between Newcastle United and Liverpool will have supremely tested Isak’s stoic ambitions. How much self-control was deployed when he took to Instagram on Tuesday evening to declare that “the relationship can’t continue”?