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Arsenal Blow, Suarez Admits Defeat With Liverpool “100% Confident” Over Clause

By on August 1, 2013

Our chances of signing Luis Suarez appear to have taken a hit today with several newspapers claiming the striker has admitted defeat in his dispute with Liverpool over his buy-out clause.

It’s believed we submitted the unusual bid of £40,000,001 last week after being told by Suarez’s advisers that any bid over £40m would automatically trigger a buy-out clause in the players contract. This would make sense and would explain why we submitted the slightly antagonising bid of £1 over £40m.

But Liverpool rejected the bid, insisting they were under no obligation to sell for ANY price and the clause simply meant they had to inform the striker a bid in excess of £40m had been made.

Reports last week suggested Suarez was prepared to take the case to a Premier League arbitration hearing in order to force through a move, which would have been excellent news for Arsenal. Even if he didn’t win the case he would have kicked up enough fuss that him staying at Anfield would have been almost impossible.

However, the Mirror are one of several newspapers who’ve reported that the Uruguayan has admitted defeat and acknowledges that the clause is not a buy-out clause and he wont be taking the matter up with the Premier League.

An source close to Liverpool’s American owners told the Mirror:

“We are 100 per cent confident – there is absolutely no obligation to sell and that is very clear,”

“We’ve all examined the clause in detail. All it obliges is good faith negotiations about Luis’s future.”

So, it turns out Suarez’s advisers got it wrong and misinterpreted the exact wording of the clause, leaving us without a world class striker and we’ve p*ssed off Liverpool in the process making any future negotiations much more difficult.

It’s now likely we’ll need to bid in excess of £50m to land Suarez and I’m not convinced Arsene Wenger will sanction such a bid. It sounds like we’ve been led on a bit here by Suarez’s advisers. They must have given us confidence that the buy-out clause would come into effect for us to pass up the opportunity to sign Gonzalo Higuain, and now we face the very real possibility of missing out on both players.

There is still the chance that Suarez could hand in a transfer request which should force Liverpool to lower their demands. This is the only way I see us getting him but it’s still going to cost us far more than we initially expected.

Suarez is unlikely to hand in a transfer request and pass up around £5m in loyalty bonuses unless we promise to make that up to him with a signing on fee. So if Liverpool’s asking price now is £50m, if Suarez hands in a transfer request the Merseysiders could sell for £45m (as they’ll save £5m in loyalty bonuses), we pay the player a hefty signing on fee and everyone’s a winner. Well, except Arsene who’d probably have a heart attack at spending that kind of money!

So the ball looks to be in Suarez’s court. If he wants a move to play Champions League football that badly, it looks like he’ll have to hand in a transfer request. Over to you Luis…..

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Do you think Arsenal will end up buying Suarez? Will the striker hand in a transfer request?

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