Football

Why Arsenal made infamous £40m+£1 transfer bid for Luis Suarez


Arsenal attempted to sign Luis Suarez from Liverpool in the summer of 2013 (Picture: Getty)

Former Arsenal transfer chief Dick Law insists never wanted to antagonise Liverpool with an infamous £40million+£1 transfer bid for Luis Suarez.

Arsene Wenger ditched the north London club’s move for Gonzalo Higuain in the summer of 2013, sensing an opportunity to prise the Uruguay international from Liverpool instead.

Suarez had agitated for a transfer and believed his contract included a £40m buyout clause.

Law, who was overseeing Arsenal’s transfer strategy in conjunction with Wenger and Ivan Gazidis, discovered, however, that the clause merely meant Liverpool were obliged to inform Suarez of any offers they received over the £40m mark.

Arsenal, therefore, submitted an audacious offer, a solitary pound over the required mark, prompting Liverpool owner John W Henry to tweet ‘What do you think they’re smoking over there at Emirates?’

Law, however, insists Arsenal did not mean to cause any animosity, were shocked when the bid was made public and insisted it was purely a negotiating tactic.

He told Goal: ‘That spring, news got round to us that Suarez wanted out of Liverpool.

‘We got information that showed us what was negotiated between Liverpool and the player, and in our internal conversations decided that the clause was meaningless, that it was not a buy-out and it didn’t obligate Liverpool to do anything apart from have a conversation.

Arsenal signed Mesut Ozil after failing with a cheeky bid for Luis Suarez (Picture: Getty)

‘So, whoever agreed to that clause in the Suarez camp was being less than clever because it was never a buy-out. What there was, was an obligation to discuss a transfer if a threshold was met and that threshold was £40m.

‘Now, we didn’t know if Liverpool received an offer of £40m whether they would say, ‘that’s not more than £40m’. We could have gone with £45m, but the point is we knew there was never a buy-out.

‘So, it was never going to be a bid of £40m+1, it was always going to be the start of a negotiation.’

On  Henry’s now iconic response, Law added: ‘We knew that we had to exceed a certain threshold and so we decided to throw another pound on it,” he said. “We could have thrown £50 or £500,000, but it wasn’t going to make any difference to the final negotiation.

John W Henry mocked Arsenal after their audacious transfer offer for Luis Saurez (Picture: Getty)

‘The offer was just a trigger. Liverpool wanted to make a big deal out of it and that’s fine. When they received our offer they immediately publicised it.

‘I think John Henry wanted to know what we were smoking, which I thought was a bit disrespectful. It was him having a bit of a go because he was getting ready to lose his star player. It was a good way to deflect attention.”

‘I always thought that the move to publicise it was counter-productive.

‘One of the things we were always very proud of at Arsenal was working quietly behind the scenes. Ivan, Arsene and I always worked very hard on being discreet in all transfers.

‘And I thought Liverpool shot themselves in the foot by basically saying they were now forced to entertain offers because of this clause, by publicising it they just made everyone aware and eventually they lost the player.’





READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.