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Luis Suarez

LONDON. — English Premiership soccer side Arsenal will have to pay £55million if they still want Luis Suarez, after the striker dropped his pursuit of arbitration as a means of leaving for less. The Gunners’ boss Arsene Wenger had indicated he was ready to dig in and wait to see the outcome of a contract dispute between the striker and Liverpool, after submitting a bid of £40m plus one pound — which was supposed to trigger a release clause.

Yet, in fresh talks early this week with his club, Suarez has finally conceded he will not approach the English Premier League to arbitrate — because the contract clearly states the Anfield giants have no obligation to sell him at any price.

And with the 26-year-old under contract for another three years, manager Brendan Rodgers and the Reds’ board are determined to keep him unless their valuation – thought to be around the £55m Paris Saint-Germain paid Napoli for Edinson Cavani, Suarez’s Uruguay strike partner, a fortnight ago — is matched.

Suarez has made no attempt to ask the English Premier League to arbitrate in his contract wrangle with Liverpool and force through a move from Anfield.

Suarez’s advisors believe the £40million figure in his contract should allow the Uruguay international to move from Anfield but Liverpool maintain the price simply means they have to inform him that a bid has been made.

Arsenal attempted to trigger the clause last week with a £40million plus £1 offer, having previously had a £35million offer rebuked, but they have not been back since and Suarez has not tried to get in touch with the Premier League in the meantime to mediate.

It is up to Suarez what move he decides to make next but it would appear his attempts to get arbitration would be doomed.
Liverpool have no desire to sell a player who scored 30 goals last season and who has three years remaining on his contract.

They insist the clause is watertight and have stressed all along that an offer above £40million means they only have to tell Suarez that a club has been in touch — it does not mean they are duty bound to sell at that figure. A Liverpool source said: “We’ve all examined the clause in detail. All it obliges is good faith negotiations about Luis’s future. There is absolutely no obligation to sell and that is very clear.”

Liverpool have never given a definitive figure on what they value Suarez at but during their pre-season tour of the Far East and Australia, manager Brendan Rodgers intimated that he rates Suarez in the bracket of Edison Cavani, who joined Paris St Germain for £55million.

Such is Liverpool’s desire to retain Suarez that John W Henry, Liverpool’s Principal Owner, tweeted in the aftermath of the £40 000 001 bid: “what are they smoking over there at Emirates?”

Suarez was due to report back to training yesterday after Liverpool’s players were given a couple of days to recover from their return flight from Thailand on Sunday.

They are back in action next on Saturday, when they face Olympiakos in Steven Gerrard’s testimonial.
Meanwhile, Rodgers claims Suarez “totally understands” the club’s firm stance in their insistence not to entertain any offers for the striker.
They believe they are owed a degree of loyalty from the 26-year-old after standing by him during the race row with Patrice Evra which saw him banned for eight matches and during his current suspension of 10 games for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic.

“It’s a story that can keep running but for me there is no new news,” Rodgers told the Liverpool Echo.
“Luis is happy. He totally understands the club’s point of view.

“He’s in a difficult position in terms of not being able to play because of his suspension — he will sit out the first six games and he will miss playing football.

“But he’s working hard and remains part of the group. He hasn’t been moping about.
“It’s obviously difficult when you come back after a break but he has settled in and has been working well.

“He needs to get up to speed and we will continue to work to get all the players ready for the first game of the season.”
Suarez’s situation was the transfer saga of the summer until it was recently overtaken by Real Madrid’s pursuit of Tottenham’s Gareth Bale with hardly a day going by without him being in the headlines.

It was not helped with the player being on Confederations Cup duty which did not see him join up with the rest of the squad until he flew out to Australia on July 21 for their third pre-season friendly.

Rodgers is confident, however, it has not had a destabilising effect on the rest of the squad.
“It could have unsettled them but it hasn’t,” he added.

“It says a lot about their professionalism: the environment that we’re creating is that the star will always be the team. We want to have top players here but if for whatever reason we don’t, we will always know we can rely on the team and each other.

“The harmony in the group is very good. The spirit is strong. Right across the club there is a one club mentality.
“If we can keep it that way we can have a great season.” And Wenger’s problems are compounded by the fact Liverpool are determined not to sell to one of their direct rivals for the top-four place they are targeting in the coming season.

And that means Suarez has only three options if he is to get his desire to go to a club engaged in the 2013-14 Champions League — a sentiment he reiterated at a meeting with the club at the start of this week.

Option one would require Wenger to make a bid so massive it would convince Liverpool to sell — and sources within Anfield suggest that figure would have to be well beyond £50m for them to even contemplate doing business with another English club.

Option two is for Suarez to take the drastic action which Carlos Tevez attempted when he tried to force a move away from Manchester City . . . but the Argentine’s “strike” plan backfired dramatically and he was left to rot in the reserves amid widespread global condemnation.

While Suarez has indicated to Arsenal he is prepared to agitate for a move, he has stopped short of submitting a transfer request.
Nor has he shown any appetite for the extreme course of action he pursued when he eventually engineered a switch to Ajax from fellow Dutch side Groningen.

That leaves his final option, and perhaps the only real prospect now of a route out of Anfield — a bid from a foreign club.
While Liverpool are determined to ensure any English suitors meet their massive valuation, their preferred option, if Suarez does leave, is to see him disappear from the Premier League, and they could be persuaded to reduce the fee for a team from overseas.

Real Madrid are still the striker’s preferred option. And even though the Spanish giants are currently consumed with their passionate pursuit of Spurs’ Gareth Bale, they have indicated there is some interest in Suarez.

If they can raise sufficient funds, Real could still bid later in the transfer window, and Liverpool would be more inclined to allow that deal to happen — especially if they are given the time to line up a suitable replacement. — Mailonline-The Mirror.