Liverpool and Ajax agreed a deal for the transfer of Luis Suarez for a club record fee of 22.8 million pounds. The deal is subject to personal terms being agreed and medical. English giants were able to break the bank for the Uruguayan
striker after a torrid season and the team lacking pace and attacking options.
Liverpool Director of Football strategy, Damien Comolli, played a very important part in the completion of the deal with repeated talks from the Ajax club. He also travelled to meet the Amsterdam club’s officials to strike a deal initially and after constant
negotiations Liverpool were successful in signing the striker.
As soon as the January transfer window opened there were rumours that Liverpool were in the transfer market to sign a striking partner for Fernando Torres who has not been in the top of forms this season. A lot of names were linked to the Merseyside club
with Fernando Llorente, Karim Benzema and Emmanuel Adebayor also being tipped for a move. But then there were media reports of Liverpool being interested in signing the Ajax striker. Initially Ajax coach Frank de Boer denied the reports as Liverpool had not
officially contacted Ajax for the transfer.
Liverpool bid 12.7 million pounds initially for the striker which was turned down by Ajax as they considered it disgraceful for their best player. Ajax were sticking to a price of 23 million pounds and were in no mood for any favours. Liverpool had a second
bid turned down worth 17 million pounds by Ajax again. The Ajax club then gave Liverpool a ‘take it or leave it’ deal placing a deadline till the 29th of January. The asking price for the player would rise by 5 million pounds every day after the
deadline. Frank de Boer said that if any deal was to happen it had to happen fast because Ajax also needed a replacement for the Uruguayan striker who had been their top goal scorer for the past three seasons. Finally, Liverpool had to raise their bid to match
Ajax’s asking price to sign the player on Friday, 28th January.
Luis Suarez had scored 111 goals in three seasons at Ajax Amsterdam and has had an excellent World Cup scoring 3 goals barring the silly hand ball incident against Ghana in the quarter-final.
Liverpool had signed the 24 year old as the strike partner to Fernando Torres which seems highly unlikely as Torres seems to be heading to Stamford Bridge after handing in a transfer request in response to Liverpool rejecting a Chelsea bid on Thursday, 27th
January.