Liverpool have said striker Luis Suarez is not for sale after the Uruguayan, who received a 10-match English domestic ban for biting last month, stated he wanted to leave the Premier League club.

“Luis Suarez is not for sale. Neither Luis or his representatives have communicated these feelings directly to Liverpool,” said a club spokesman yesterday.

“The club remains supportive of Luis and expect him to honour his contract. The club will not be making any further comment at this stage.”

The 26-year-old, who signed from Ajax in January 2011, was second in the Premier League’s list of top scorers last season with 23 goals and was Liverpool’s talisman for much of the campaign.

He was banned for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic.

The player, who served an eight-game suspension the previous season for a racist insult, told reporters in Montevideo on Thursday that British media had made his life impossible and he would like to play in the Spanish league.

“One has one’s limits, one has a family, who also suffer, and that’s very complicated,” he said.

“I have a daughter who I also have to look after, and take her away from where she sees things that are said about her father,” Suarez told a news conference.