Liverpool told me I could go, claims Luis Suarez

Luis Suarez told The Daily Telegraph he will hand in a transfer request before the end of the week if Liverpool do not clear the way for him to move to Arsenal.

The player believes he has exhausted all other avenues in his efforts to make Liverpool honour an agreement he says was established at the start of last season, which he believes obliges them to release him to a club playing in the Champions League if they bid more than pounds 40?million for him. Arsenal's initial bid exceeded that by pounds 1, but sparked a war of words with the Merseyside club, who insist they will not sell.

But in his first big interview this summer, the Uruguayan striker lays bare his frustration at the way his transfer request has become bogged down and has accused the club of misleading Liverpool supporters about his actions and motives "I want to move to play in the Champions League and there is a club offering me that opportunity," he said.

"I have told the manager that I want to leave the club. I am being accused of showing a lack of loyalty but last year I had the opportunity to move to a big European club and I stayed on the understanding that if we did not qualify for the Champions League the following season then I would be allowed to go. "I gave absolutely everything last season but it was not enough to give us a top-four finish. Now all I want is that Liverpool honour our agreement.

"Last season, we told Liverpool there was interest from a top European club but they told me: 'we have a new coach, we are going to push for the Champions League'. I spoke with Brendan Rodgers several times and he told me: 'stay another season, and you have my word, if we don't make it then I will personally make sure that you can leave'.

"Liverpool is a club with a reputation for doing things the right way, I just want them to abide by the promises made last season." Suarez says his contract was amended to include a clause, which, to his understanding, would allow him to leave if an offer for over pounds 40?million came in. "I have the club's word and we have the written contract and we are happy to take this to the Premier League for them to decide the case but I do not want it to come to that," insisted Suarez.

"We have the backing of the PFA." Suarez signed for Liverpool in January 2011 from Ajax for pounds 22.8?million and starred under Kenny Dalglish scoring 21 goals in 52 games, although his time at Anfield has often been marked by controversy, including being banned for racist comments against Manchester United's Patrice Evra and also for biting Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic. When new manager Rodgers came in he wanted to tie the player down until 2016 and increase his wages to pounds 80,000 a week.

But Liverpool had a fight on their hands because there was an offer - understood to be from Juventus - on the table. Suarez says: "That was the moment to show my loyalty to Liverpool and I did. They had given me my chance in England and stood up for me through my ban. I know I have made mistakes in my time here but I have apologised many times over. This is not about that. This is about the club having agreed to something both verbally and in the contract which they are now not honouring." But now the player believes Liverpool are unfairly painting a picture of an ungrateful player who simply wants to abandon his club.

"I am 26, I need to be playing in the Champions League. I feel I have done enough to be playing in the Champions League at this stage of my career. Now there is an option for me to do that and I want very much to take it. "I don't feel betrayed but the club promised me something a year ago just as I promised them that I would stay and try everything possible to get us into the Champions League.

"They gave me their word a year ago and now I want them to honour that. It is not just something verbal with the coach but something that is written in the contract. "I don't think the supporters are angry, I think they understand a player when he has the ambition to triumph at the highest level. I am 26 years old, I was a long time at Ajax without playing many games in the Champions League. I'm not going to another club to hurt Liverpool.

"I am always going to be grateful to Liverpool for everything. But I have to put my career first. People say Liverpool deserve more from me but I have scored 50 goals in less than 100 games and now I could double the money they paid for me.

"I just ask that they respect the objectives I have in my career. I don't want things to end badly. I just want us to come to an amicable agreement according to what was agreed." Suarez was initially linked this summer with a move to Real Madrid but he denied a move to another English club would simply be a stepping stone to a move to Spain in the near future. He said: "Right now the Premier League is the biggest and most important. My record shows that I am not the kind of player who wants to change clubs every season.

"I have no problem playing in England for many more years. If we are just talking about the level of the football and the way the supporters are then it is an incredible league. Any player in the world at the moment would like to play in the Premier League." He has also been criticised for citing his relationship with the British press as a reason for wanting to move and then pushing for a switch to another Premier League club. "I had just arrived in Uruguay where the press are very good to me because I am one of theirs," he says.

"They asked me about the press in England and what am I going to say? Of course I don't like the fact that my wife goes to the supermarket and there are photographers. But I realise that the press attention is the same wherever you go." Suarez has a foot injury and will miss tonight's final pre-season friendly against Valerenga. However, he says most of his team-mates at Liverpool understand his situation: "Some of them had urged me not to go but others understand and especially when I explain to them what was promised last year."