Bolton Wanderers will attempt to negotiate a cut-price deal with Liverpool to complete the transfer of El Hadji Diouf during next month's transfer window despite the Senegal striker being given a three-match ban for spitting at an opponent.
The improper conduct charge, admitted by the 23-year-old, was laid by the Football Association yesterday after television cameras caught him spitting in the Portsmouth captain Arjan de Zeeuw's face during Saturday's 1-0 defeat at the Reebok Stadium.
But Bolton officials have been privately impressed by Diouf's reaction to the misdemeanour and by his displays since joining on loan in August. Gérard Houllier paid Lens £10m for the striker just before the 2002 World Cup - a tournament in which he excelled - on a five-year contract worth £30,000 a week but he scored only six goals in 80 appearances. Liverpool have still to complete the payment of that transfer fee and are paying a proportion of his wages over the course of his season-long loan at the Reebok.
Bolton may attempt to extend that wage agreement over the remaining years of Diouf's contract and hope a nominal fee will secure his signature.
Diouf will be banned from the Premiership games with Everton, Norwich and Manchester City. The fact that he has admitted the charge means the case will not be referred to a disciplinary commission.
He has also issued a public apology to De Zeeuw, accepted the maximum permitted fine of two weeks' wages imposed by Bolton and promised to clean up his act. He has been equally apologetic to his team-mates.
Bolton will refer him to an in-house sports psychologist, aware that spitting has been a recurrent problem. Police on Teesside are investigating claims that he spat a drink at an 11-year-old fan during Bolton's visit to Middlesbrough on November 7 and he was fined for spitting at a Celtic fan during a Uefa Cup tie in Glasgow in 2002.
"At this moment there is no possibility that Diouf will return," said Liverpool's manager Rafael Benítez. "We have very good strikers and I am thinking only of my own strikers. He is playing at Bolton now and is not my player."