Former Liverpool star Fernando Torres has hit out at the Anfield club for portraying him as a ‘traitor’ following his big-money move to Chelsea in 2011.
The Spaniard sparked outrage among Reds fans when he signed for their Premier League rivals for a whopping £50million, a then British transfer record fee.
But Torres, 32, has opened up on his move to Chelsea, where he won the FA Cup and the Champions League, by suggesting he had no choice but to leave the Reds.
Torres claims in a new book Ring of Fire: Liverpool FC into the 21st Century – the players’ stories that he was told by then managing director Christian Purslow in the summer of 2010 that senior players such as himself would be retained to keep the club’s value high to prospective buyers.
But shortly after that meeting midfield anchor Javier Mascherano was sold to Barcelona.
The club was then purchased by New England Sports Ventures (who later changed their name to Fenway Sports Group) with manager Roy Hodgson replaced by Kenny Dalglish and Damien Comolli brought in as a director of football strategy.
Torres says in the book: ‘Comolli told me that the new owners [Fenway Sports Group], they had an idea of how to spend their investment.
‘They wanted to bring in young players, to build something new. I was thinking to myself, “this takes time to work. It takes two, three, four, maybe even 10 years”.
‘I didn’t have that time. I was 27 years old. I did not have time to wait. I wanted to win. Here we are five years later and they are still trying to build – around the same position in the league as when I left.’
Torres also claims that he only discussed leaving Liverpool with manager Dalglish after the club had held private negotiations with Chelsea over his sale.
The striker, who is now back playing with Atletico Madrid – the club he made his name at – says he was made a scapegoat for Liverpool’s lack of success at the time.
‘It was presented as if I was a traitor. It was not like this in the discussion[s].
‘Liverpool could not admit they were doing something wrong with the whole team. They had to find a guilty one.’
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