Arsene Wenger has called on the Dutch authorities to deal with Robin van Persie's rape case as quickly as possible.

Van Persie is at Arsenal's training camp in Austria, but has the shadow of a police investigation still hanging over him. The 21-year-old forward was arrested in June and accused of a sexual assault on a woman in a hotel in Rotterdam.

He was in custody for 15 days before being released on bail, when it was reported that further inquiries would take two weeks to complete.

However, that was nearly a month ago and the Dutch justice department has said that a thorough investigation could drag on into September, long after the Premiership has started.

A spokeswoman for the Rotterdam police said: "Investigations are still ongoing. It is impossible to say when everything will be completed. I would hope it would be in August, but it could be as late as September the way things are going."

That leaves the Arsenal striker still waiting to know if he will face trial or if the charges will be dropped and Wenger wants the investigations concluded so that Van Persie knows what will happen to him.

"It is important that this situation does not drag on too long," the Arsenal manager said. "It is not easy what is happening to him and at the start of it all it was a burden for him to deal with."

Wenger insists that Van Persie is beginning to cope with the situation and says that his participation in the pre-season training camp in south-east Austria for the past week has helped him.

Although he did not feature in the game against SC Weiz on Wednesday evening, his manager believes being reunited with the Arsenal squad has lifted his spirits.

"I think it helps Robin to be with his comrades again," Wenger said. "He has coped with it all quite well and I think being with his team-mates every day can help him to forget about it a little bit. But it is never going to be easy for him."

Meanwhile, Newcastle United confirmed yesterday that they have made formal offers to Fulham and Fenerbahce for Luis Boa Morte and Nicolas Anelka. Fulham's response was immediate and negative, and Fenerbahce are also keen for Newcastle to up their initial bid.

Newcastle say they will not go beyond £7 million for Anelka but they will have to raise their offer to £5 million if they are to get Boa Morte.

Boa Morte signed a new five-year contract at Fulham in January, but it is understood that a get-out clause is activated if a club bids £5 million. Newcastle have offered £3.5 million and there is some consternation at Craven Cottage - and in Graeme Souness's office at Newcastle - that Newcastle have not yet reached the required figure.

"You won't even get his boots for that," Fulham's manager Chris Coleman said this week. "If people think it's little Fulham, the nice little club down by the river, and that they can pick their best players without paying what they are worth, then they are wrong."

Souness is confident that Boa Morte wants to leave Fulham for Tyneside and he is equally certain that Anelka, despite public utterances to the contrary, wants to move to Newcastle.

The other striker Souness would like to sign is Middlesbrough's Mark Viduka and in an ideal world Souness would buy both Anelka and Viduka. That would raise a question mark against the level of Alan Shearer's participation next season.

"We're talking" was all Souness would say beyond confirming the official approaches for Anelka and Boa Morte, on possible transfers he mentioned his liking for Liverpool's Sami Hyypia. "I do admire Sami," Souness said, "but I think he wants a three-year contract and that's not something we'd be willing to do. But I do like him."

This week a tentative inquiry from Newcastle to Liverpool concerning Hyypia was rebuffed strongly, but the 31-year-old Finland international centre-half has not yet signed his new contract extension at Anfield and the longer that situation persists the less likely he is to.

Newcastle have the formality of their Intertoto Cup-tie second leg against the Slovakians of ZTS Dubnica at St James' Park this afternoon and Lee Bowyer is fit after missing the first-leg 3-1 victory.

Clearly unwanted by Newcastle, Bowyer told the club's website yesterday: "It isn't good when a player is told by his club that he has permission to speak to another club, and you do wonder whether or not you are wanted."