Alan Brazil: Virgil Van Dijk Liverpool transfer farce was more suited to Dick van Dyke!

TAPPING up of transfer targets may be banned – but it happens all the time.

Anybody in football who tells you otherwise is at the capers.

Everybody does it. Everybody knows it. It’s a big part of how the transfer market works.

Usually, however, the kind of clandestine approaches the rule book forbids happen in a subtle, two steps removed sort of way.

A club will use a third-party representative to contact a player’s agent to sound out his interest in a potential move.

That’s how it normally goes.

Then, only after the player confirms his interest, will the buying club approach the selling club to talk money.

It’s unwritten, but everybody understands how it works.

So when a club reports another for breaking the rules, the assumption is that something has gone very wrong.

Let’s look at Liverpool’s aborted move for Virgil Van Dijk.

Within the space of 48 hours, the Reds went from being confident of landing Van Dijk from Southampton to issuing a public apology to the Saints and ending their interest.

It didn’t stop the south-coast club reporting the Anfield outfit to the Premier League.

For a club of Liverpool’s stature to have been caught out in such a fashion seems astonishing – a farce more suited to Dick van Dyke than the bold Virgil.

But, when you consider it isn’t the first time the Reds have been accused of this sort of thing, it starts to seem totally inept.

Just two months ago, the Anfield club were hit with a two-year ban from signing academy players from other English clubs.

Why? They accepted a charge of making an illegal approach for a 12-year-old Stoke City youngster.

Going back a bit further, the Reds were reported to the Premier League by Fulham over another alleged illegal approach for Clint Dempsey.

None of those things look good in isolation. Throw them together along with the Van Dijk scenario and it looks like a terrible situation. Embarrassing, in fact.

It could also have serious consequences ahead of the club’s return to the Champions League.

Jurgen Klopp did a great job to secure a fourth-placed Premier League finish.

But the Champions League requires another level of investment.

In former Celtic star Van Dijk, the Liverpool boss was set to buy himself a defensive rock.

Instead, he has been left with egg on his face and a big hole to fill.

It’s still possible the player himself could force a move through.

Van Dijk tweeted a picture of himself, staring moodily out of a plane window, sending the message that he wants out of St Mary’s.

He isn’t short of suitors, with Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal all reportedly keen.

But it seemed Liverpool was his preferred destination until it all fell apart.

The Reds are too big to be so naive. They are also too big to be making the same alleged mistakes over and over.

This time, if they miss out on their No. 1 transfer target – and if the Premier League crack down again – I reckon somebody’s head will roll.