The 155-page Champions League rule book that clubs must follow

The day before Cork City beat Valur 2-0 in Reykjavik in 2007, Uefa’s man on the spot held a roundtable meeting with officials of both clubs to ensure all the boxes for the Intertoto Cup game had been ticked.

As hosts for the first leg, the lion’s share for the smooth running of the game belonged to Valur and, as the Uefa rep was at pains to make clear, he had done his homework on the workings of the national stadium where the game would be played.

Noting that, some years before, an international at the venue had been abandoned because of a floodlight failure, he sought an assurance from Valur that the same problem would not arise for the game against Cork.