On signing his new lucrative contract with Liverpool in December 2013 Luis Suarez assured the fans that he was staying at the club. He said:
“When you extend your contract, you extend it because you want to stay here for the future,” said Suárez. “I signed not only for two-and-a-half more years, but I signed for a long time to stay here and I am so happy.
“When you are happy, you try everything for the best for the future. I spoke a lot with my family because my family are very important to me and they are happy here. We spoke over the last few weeks with the club and everything is okay. I don’t have a problem; the club don’t have a problem, so it’s very good.
“I am delighted to have agreed a new deal with Liverpool and have my future secured for the long term. We have some great players and the team is growing and improving all the time. I believe I can achieve the ambitions of winning trophies and playing at the very highest level with Liverpool. My aim is to help get us there as quickly as possible.
Then, a few months later, on leaving Liverpool Suarez said:
“This club did all they could to get me to stay, but playing and living in Spain, where my wife’s family live, is a lifelong dream and ambition. I believe now the timing is right.”
We all know that modern football is a mercenary environment where money seems to be the motivating factor in every decision. Sure, we can understand why the player would want to swap Liverpool for Barcelona. But it would just be nice to get a bit of honesty – a bit of integrity from players who we pay large chunks of our income to watch and who we regularly turn into idols.
People like Suarez simply leave a bad taste in the mouth. Great players but far from great people. At every turn the guy has disappointed us off the field and even on it. If he had been a little more host when he signed his last contract, rather than banging on about how Liverpool is his long term club, then we wouldn’t feel so robbed right now.
It seems that Suarez will say whatever is necessary at the time to be seen as a good guy. But his words regularly come back to contradict him. We think that after the initial disappointment subsides, we shall all realise that, actually, we are pretty pleased to see the back of him.
Let Suarez be Spain’s problem for a while.