Luis Suarez deal shows Liverpool's progress off the pitch

RARELY in the modern era has a deal of this magnitude for a player as coveted and as newsworthy as Suarez been concluded with so little drama.

FOR a time, Luis Suarez came to symbolise Fenway Sports Group's struggle to come to terms with football. A contract which did not prevent Liverpool's best player from moving to a rival Barclays Premier League club was one example; a lack of conspicuous leadership which allowed the club to temporarily lose its moral compass after he was found guilty of racial abuse was another.

Yesterday, as Suarez put pen to paper on a new contract with the minimum of fuss, it became clear that he is increasingly becoming the symbol of how far Liverpool's owners have come in such a short space of time. Rarely in the modern era has a deal of this magnitude for a player as coveted and as newsworthy as Suarez been concluded with so little drama.

"When we have something to tell you we will do so," was a mantra that was passed on from Bob Paisley to Kenny Dalglish, one that underlined Liverpool's desire not to withhold information, but to ensure that club business was conducted as privately as possible. The agreement that Ian Ayre, Liverpool's managing director, negotiated with Pere Guardiola, Suarez's representative, harks back to an age when the club consistently lived up to that adage, even if Liverpool still have some way to go before they can match the standards set by their predecessors on the pitch.

FSG got the job done quietly and efficiently by making the 26-year-old an offer that he could not refuse, one that in financial terms is worth almost double his current salary and around five times the weekly wage he accepted upon joining Liverpool in January 2011. Of course, there will be devil in the detail - no top player signs a contract which does not feature myriad clauses - but it is undeniable that Liverpool are in a stronger position with Suarez than they have been at any point since he first signed.

The glaring weakness in his previous contract - that contentious, disputed clause which allowed Arsenal to test the water and unsettle the forward with their pounds 40,000,001 bid - has been removed. Last summer, when uncertainty about Suarez's future was at its height, John W. Henry, Liverpool's principal owner, admitted that, with hindsight, he would have preferred it if the terms of his contract had precluded rival English clubs from even testing the clause. That problem no longer exists. Liverpool do not even have to listen to offers from domestic rivals unless they want to.

It is this ability to learn from their own mistakes that means FSG has been able to guide Liverpool into a situation in which they are currently in better health, on and off the pitch, than they have been for some time. A team with Suarez at its heart continues to grow and could return to the top of the Barclays Premier League should they defeat Cardiff City at Anfield today. A club which was, in the recent past, riven with divisions, is striding forward with renewed confidence.

For this transformation to take place there had to be a turning point and it is hard to escape the belief that it came when Henry and Brendan Rodgers showed a united front in denying Suarez the move to Arsenal that he craved. Since then, the club, the principal owner and the manager have assumed an authority that demonstrated, even to Suarez, that if decisions were to be made they would be done so on their terms.

Having initially accepted only begrudgingly the ideal that no individual is bigger than the club, Suarez has now embraced it. Liverpool are realistic enough to accept that this could change in the event of them failing to fulfil his ambition of playing Champions League football, particularly if Real Madrid's interest turns into a formal offer, but they will also be confident that they have negotiated themselves into a position of strength. There may have been times when FSG wondered whether or not Suarez was worth the trouble but it can now reflect that the Uruguay striker has given them a much needed crash course in football.

Today - as they delight in securing the future of one of the sport's greatest talents - they should also celebrate how far they have come and how they have benefited from their time with Luis Alberto Suarez Diaz.