As taken from an excerpt in his most recent book, a legendary manager revealed the truth behind a ‘ludicrous’ offer for Luis Suarez.
Luis Suarez was one of the most coveted players in the world during his Liverpool days, but England has different transfer rules. Unlike the rest of the clubs in Europe, the Premier League forbids release clauses for any of their players. If you are one of the world’s most important institutions, you just have to make an offer and negotiate.
But at this point in the striker’s career, it was clear that any offer would have to be above €80 million. In hindsight, Arsenal made a cheeky offer just to make everyone at Liverpool angry. The Gunners knew that the Reds wouldn’t agree to sell their best player to a direct title contender.
Regardless, Wenger agreed to make a ridiculous offer after reports suggested any number above £40 million would be accepted. After they realized the golden opportunity of endless banter, Arsenal offered one more pound above that number.
Liverpool didn’t respond well to mockery.
After Wenger’s £40,000,001 offer to the Reds, John W. Henry’s response after that became legendary. He asked on Twitter if the powers that be at Liverpool were ‘smoking something strong’. But he only failed to get the joke.
Wenger later explained what the offer represented through his book, ‘Arsene Wenger: My Life in Red and White’.
“In 2014 [the 2013/14 season] we were looking to get Luis Suarez over,” the former Gunners’ boss said.
“We had an agreement with the player and his agent. But the agent claimed that there was a clause: with an offer above £40million, Liverpool would be obliged to let the player go.
“But thanks to an indiscretion within Liverpool, I found out that his clause never existed. To check this was true, we offered £40,000,001.
“This may have seemed ludicrous, I admit. But Liverpool did not want to sell Suarez, they could afford to keep him and there was already an offer from Barca on the horizon.”
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