Liverpool owner John W Henry has told Arsenal to give up in their pursuit of Luis Suarez.
The Gunners have lodged a bid of £40million plus £1 for the striker, an amount that the Uruguayan believed would trigger a buy-out clause if it came from a club in the Champions League.
But Liverpool have refuted that claim, with Henry saying he has told Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis that he will not allow Suarez to go to the Emirates for any price.
The American billionaire has also expressed his dismay that Arsenal had gathered details about Suarez's contract and he insists they should not have been talking to the former Ajax man.
When asked whether Arsenal should stop their pursuit of the player, Henry told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet: "They don't have permission to do all this, so the answer would be yes."
Suarez has threatened to hand in a transfer request and even mooted the possibility of taking the Reds to a Premier League tribunal if he does not get his desired move away from Anfield.
But speaking on Thursday night, Henry was insistent that his star man would stay and expressed his anger that any potential clauses within his contract had found their way into the Arsenal boardroom.
"It should have been confidential, so absolutely it concerns me," said Henry. "How does a club that doesn't have permission to speak with your player see his contract?
"Unfortunately, it's the way it works in football. People don't speak about it publicly but that's the way it's run. It's how things are done. I don't think there's a point reporting Arsenal because it just seems to happen everywhere, throughout football."
Suarez is currently training separately from the rest of the squad and manager Brendan Rodgers said: "Obviously Luis is training on his own at the moment and he understands totally where we're coming from.
Source: PA
