Luis Suarez has admitted that he did not leave Liverpool to join FC Barcelona for financial reasons and in fact was earning more at Anfield than he was at the Camp Nou.
The former Reds forward lit up the Premier League during his stint in the red half of Merseyside but eventually called time on his Liverpool career in 2014 to join La Liga titans Barcelona and has since explained: "At Liverpool I earned more than at Barcelona, but I preferred to go to Barca for the project."
The Uruguay international enjoyed incredible success with the Blaugrana, winning La Liga on four separate occasions and even lifting the Champions League in 2015. However, things could have played out very differently had he joined Arsenal when they were in pursuit of his signature while still at Liverpool.
The Gunners lodged an infamous bid of £40,000,001 in an attempt to try and activate the forward's release clause in a move that was swiftly met with ridicule from the Reds hierarchy and duly rejected. That's not to say Suarez wasn't keen on the move however and even tried to force through his exit but it was to no avail.
Instead, he remained with the club for one more season largely in thanks to some personal intervention from then-Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard. "Before the meeting you had Luis Suarez training on his own in the afternoon at Melwood," Gerrard explained.
"Brendan’s [Rodgers] relationship with Luis had broken down. I don’t think it was Brendan’s fault. Luis wanted to move on, to play Champions League football and he had people in his ear and people around him forcing him to make moves that maybe he didn’t really want to do.
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"So I think it was just a case of being in the middle and trying to heal that relationship with him and Brendan and get him training with the first team again and just chatting to Luis and saying to him, is it Arsenal that you really want or do you want Real Madrid or Barca?"
Suarez spent one more year at the club before being enticed by the bright lights of Barcelona and has remained in Spain ever since. Though he has not stayed at the Camp Nou for that whole time, having joined their La Liga rivals Atletico Madrid in the Autumn on 2020.
His two-year stint under Diego Simeone has been a huge success, winning another league title - but Suarez is leaving in acrimonious circumstances. Reflecting on his imminent departure, Suarez said: "He [Simone] told me that the communication director, Rafael Alique, was leaving the day before I was fired.
"I said, 'well, at least someone tells me something.' After I did not speak to Simeone, Andrea Berta or Miguel Angel."
