Luis Suárez has issued a qualified apology for saying "negro" during his confrontation with Patrice Evra at Anfield and maintained he used the word once and not in the derogatory manner that resulted in an eight-match ban plus £40,000 fine for racist abuse.

The Liverpool striker was found to have used the word "negro" or "negros" seven times during his row with the Manchester United defender by an independent regulatory commission and missed the club's 3-0 defeat at Manchester City on Tuesday having decided not to appeal against his subsequent punishment.

Both Suárez and Liverpool have been widely condemned for their reaction to the commission's verdict. The Anfield club released two statements that questioned the integrity of the Football Association and Evra, while their players and manager, Kenny Dalglish, wore T‑shirts in support of Suárez at Wigan Athletic and the Uruguay international showed no contrition when reluctantly commencing his ban despite stating, on 7 November, that whoever was found to be "in the wrong" would have to apologise.

An apology finally came on Wednesday, though not directly to Evra, five days after the commission's findings were made public in a 115-page document. Suárez said: "I admitted to the commission that I said a word in Spanish once, and only once, and I told the panel members that I will not use it again on a football pitch in England. I never, ever used this word in a derogatory way and if it offends anyone then I want to apologise for that."

Liverpool remain fully supportive of Suárez's claim that he addressed Evra in "a conciliatory and friendly way" during the 1-1 draw with United, even though the commission described their defence that cultural differences led to a misunderstanding between the pair as "simply incredible given that the players were engaged in an acrimonious argument", and despite the threat to their reputation. The club's principal owner, John W Henry, and chairman, Tom Werner, have been in frequent contact with Dalglish and other Anfield officials throughout the controversy and are united behind their manager's stance.

While accepting Suárez's punishment, albeit reluctantly and with little prospect of overturning the length of the striker's ban, Anfield officials remain aggrieved at the procedures that led to the guilty verdict and intend to hold talks with the FA over changing the disciplinary process for future cases. There is also a possibility, albeit slim, of the club requesting an inquiry into how the commission reached its conclusions, although this would not affect Suárez's spell on the sidelines.

Liverpool believe a commission that is appointed by the FA and decides on the "flexible civil standard of the balance of probability" for a charge as serious as racist abuse to be major weaknesses that need rectifying. Dalglish, speaking in the aftermath of the defeat at the Etihad Stadium to Manchester City on Tuesday, claimed: "There's a lot of things we'd like to say and a lot we could say but we would only get ourselves in trouble." He also referred to evidence submitted at the four-day hearing in December that was "not in the report and that's important for us".

That is believed to refer to Liverpool's contention that Evra was guided through his witness statements by the FA while being allowed to watch footage of his confrontation with Suárez. The United defender did not, for example, recall being pinched by Suárez until after a review of the incident and that action formed a large part of the case against the Uruguayan.

The Liverpool striker's request to study the same footage while submitting his statement, his club alleges, was refused. Suárez was subsequently described as giving "unreliable" and "inconsistent" evidence by the commission while Evra changed his initial allegation of being labelled a "nigger" by Suárez 10 times, and was deemed a credible witness.

Liverpool also claim that many of their submissions were dismissed by the commission or not included in the 115-page document compiled by Paul Goulding QC. That prompted the allegation from the club on Tuesday "that the Football Association and the panel it selected constructed a highly subjective case against Luis Suárez".

Suárez confessed to using the word "negro" to the match officials at Anfield after the game on 15 October and before Liverpool issued their first robust defence of the striker. Liverpool's stance, that their £22.8m signing from Ajax is not guilty of racist abuse, despite his admission to using the word once and the commission's detailed findings, has continued to attract criticism, with Blackburn Rovers' Jason Roberts accusing the Anfield club of setting a bad example. The striker, who has campaigned for Kick It Out, said: "Liverpool's stance of saying he's done nothing wrong goes against the spirit of our league. When you read the report, it's quite ugly. To use those words in that tone and context is certainly not acceptable in our leagues. It's not good enough to say: 'It's OK where I come from, so we do it here.' That's not the way we judge our society or the Premier League. They were ugly scenes and I'm worried that kids would have seen this. This is something that has to be told to everyone – it's not tolerated, especially in our leagues, as diverse as they are."