Jurgen Klopp is braced for Liverpool to face punishment for fielding an ineligible player in the Carabao Cup.
Pedro Chirivella came on in the second half of the Reds’ 2-0 win over MK Dons in last week’s third round but had not received international clearance to play.
The Spanish midfielder, 22, had spent the second half of last season on loan with Extramadura which meant he needed to be re-registered by his parent club.
Anfield officials believe that the issue arose due to an administrative error after Liverpool sent Chirivella’s application to the Football Association in July.
But it had not been processed in time for his substitute appearance at Stadium MK.
Now the European champions could face a number of potential repercussions, including expulsion from the Carabao Cup itself in a worst-case scenario.
Ahead of this week’s ruling by the EFL, who operate the competition, Klopp has urged the authorities to not hold to impose sanctions on Chirivella personally.
He said: “I cannot say too much about it. There are other people working on it in the moment.
“What I can say, if it was our fault alone then probably we need to be punished for it.
“It didn’t happen on purpose or whatever, but my only real concern is the player to be 100 percent honest.
“Pedro already had the problem that he couldn’t play for half a year in Spain, and if he would not be allowed to play from now on until whenever it’s sorted, that would be, for me, the biggest problem.
“How it is in life, you make a mistake, I’m not sure that we really made a mistake, but if it’s like this, then the player should not be punished for that, 100 percent.”