It turns out that the Warsaw club committed the grievous error of not naming Bereszynski on the squad list submitted to UEFA for the St Patrick’s games. He missed the contests, but Legia failed to officially name him for games he was forbidden to play in.

Petty? It’s worse than that.

The UEFA statement added: “In addition, the player Bartosz Bereszynski has been suspended for one additional UEFA competition match for which he would be otherwise eligible. The suspension shall be added to the remaining two-match suspension which the player still has to serve.”

So the player, who presumably is not responsible for the club paperwork, is to be punished in total six games — twice the automatic suspension in the rules.

Henning Berg, the Legia coach, told reporters over the weekend that his club would go to all possible lengths to appeal. “We thought we had a good chance,” said Berg, a Norwegian. “But it has been taken away from us because of this little technical mistake in the administration.”

Berg talked about the dream denied his players. He makes the mistake of talking like a former player — Berg won a Champions League medal with Manchester United in 1999 — and a coach, rather than a pen-pusher.

Even the Celtic manager, another Norwegian, Ronny Deila, admitted that he was embarrassed to be going through this way. “It’s very strange, I have to say,” said Deila. “I feel very sorry for Legia and my friends from Norway there. Legia played well against us, they put in good performances. But this is nothing to do with Celtic. It is about UEFA. It is not my business. It is a club thing and a UEFA thing.”

It is bigger than that. It stinks.

The possibility of reaching the group stage of the Champions League makes a potential difference of more than $30 million in income for each club.