The Liverpool tapping-up scandal was dramatically reignited on Tuesday after they were accused of submitting a “falsified” document to the Premier League when trying to lure a 12-year-old schoolboy from Stoke City.

The Anfield club are facing imminent legal action from the unnamed boy, now 13, and his family, having failed to make amends for leaving both him unable to play academy football and his parents in thousands of pounds of debt more than three months after Telegraph Sport first revealed their plight.

Compounding the litany of transgressions over which Liverpool became the first club to be punished under strict new Premier League rules - and the lengths to which they were allegedly prepared to go to conceal them - they have now been publicly accused of altering the date of a signature on his academy player registration application.

Father and son completed the document on September 2 last year, three days before the latter began the new school year at his private school, the fees for which Liverpool had agreed to pay until he was 16.

The club directed the pair not to date their signatures, an instruction the father ignored to ensure the moment was accurately recorded.