Peter Moore recalled the precise moment he realized that his life would no longer be the same. It came during the summer of 2017, not long after he had left his job running the video-game maker Electronic Arts to take over as chief executive of Liverpool Football Club. Moore had just stepped out of a Starbucks with a cup of coffee in each hand when he was confronted by one of the club’s supporters.

Rather than buying coffee, the fan insisted, Moore should have been back in his office finding the money to buy Virgil van Dijk, the Dutch defender whom Liverpool was, at the time, still struggling to acquire. The man departed with two parting words that cannot be printed here, stalking off before Moore could explain two important points.

The first was that even if he was willing to reveal the plans to add van Dijk — who would eventually join for a record fee — he would not have been able to: Moore simply wasn’t in possession of the most up-to-date information.