Is Luis Suarez's agent to blame for the transfer debacle this summer?
Former Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow thinks that all of the blame should go to agent Pere Guardiola.
"What's unusual about this case is there seems to be some significant confusion between the player and the club as to whether he did or didn't have such an escape clause," Purslow said in an interview with Sky Sports News. "Yesterday it became clear that he did not have a clause, so I suspect he's pretty unhappy with his agent, who got that wrong a year ago.
He also commented on Arsenal, Suarez's most active suitor to this point.
"I also suspect Arsenal are unhappy because they're a club who do their business extremely properly and professionally and they will have been made aware by intermediaries acting for the player that he thought such a clause existed," he said. "They will have done the right thing, which is make a written offer to Liverpool. They may have spent a lot of time thinking that if they were to make an offer at that level they would be securing a player. This is not something one does on a whim....I suspect [Arsenal manager] Arsene Wenger and Arsenal have been planning Luis Suarez as their main signing for some time and to discover that such a clause is not valid and doesn't work runs the risk of seriously wasting Arsenal's time as well."
Suarez told the public that he had a clause in his contract that enable him to be moved to another club should a 40 million pound offer be made. He also stated that the club agreed to release him if it failed to qualify for the Champions league in 2013-14. However, the club has repeatedly noted that no such promise was made.
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