Cast your mind back two years, to a time when West Ham were on the cusp of selling Lucas Paquetá to Manchester City for £80m.
The £105m sale of then club captain Declan Rice to Arsenal had gone through, and manager David Moyes had targeted Manchester City’s Cole Palmer as the Brazilian playmaker’s replacement.
Less than five days later, it was announced that the FA were investigating Paquetá for betting irregularities surrounding yellow cards collected while on West Ham duty.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Hammers’ record signing saw his dream move to Manchester City collapse—and two years on, we’re still waiting for a result.
The impact on Paquetá has been significant. The FA’s investigation, hearing, and decision have dragged on for 24 months. The hearing itself has long since concluded, and one assumes the decision has been made. After all, it was the FA who appointed the three-man panel to rule on the 27-year-old’s guilt. The governing body have investigated, ruled, and will sentence—as police, judge, jury, and executioner in the process.
Yet while we wait, yet another West Ham transfer window appears to be suffering due to the FA’s reluctance—or inability—to announce their findings.
As West Ham fans, we’re sick of hearing how skint we are and how this is hindering such a crucial window. Wasn’t the move to the Olympic Stadium supposed to insulate the club from these situations and elevate us into the elite?
Unfortunately, the reality is that both West Ham and Graham Potter need either the funds from a Paquetá sale—or at the very least, clarity on whether he’ll be available next season.
Paqueta saga will enter its third year in August
Potter needs a Paqueta resolution to plan for transfer window
I’ve no doubt Potter has identified creative attacking midfielders to sign. But realistically—how can he move without knowing the situation?
The FA have taken far too long to reach a conclusion, a delay that’s impacted Paquetá’s mental health and ability to secure new employment.
For West Ham, the cost has been significant. Let’s just hope a decision is finally near—because the thought of this sorry saga dragging into a third year is unbearable.
The FA need to charge its self for bringing the game into disrepute over this.
I must admit I am very surprised that West Ham have not issued legal proceedings against the FA. Their delay in announcing the result after a 2 year investigation is prejudicing our position in the transfer market. Although difficult to quantify, we have a strong case to state that their proceedings against our record signing had a detrimental effect on the whole team and our league position (and prize money) suffered as a result. Not to mention the player’s mental health. Totally unacceptable!
Spot on Gonzo (as usual mate)
The FA must of gotten lost in the Executive lounge whilst investigating.
The whole process has been intolerable, especially for Paqueta and his family and the FA should be ashamed and embarrassed and it needs investigating by an independent tribunal because it’s totally unacceptable to have taken so long. The verdict need’s to be made public ASAP, more so if there is insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict and the player is cleared of any wrong doing. Let’s hope for the best and we actually see again a great player playing football with freedom and a smile on his face in a claret and blue shirt!
The FA I believe will be sued by West Ham and Paqueta for the gross injustice of directly hindering the Club and Player from conducting their trade in a normal way, the opportunity cost that has been denied to both is significant.
The FA on realising this to be the case are now likely trying to find a way out of this hole. But they will need some very clever lawyers to dig them out of this one!!
I really do think the FA have got themselves in a pickle here, and some people high up now nwed to get this sorry saga concluded for everyone’s sake before the hole grows.even bigger.
Litigation needs to be sorted for this, club and player need to take the F.A. to court. Mental stress on the player, his and clubs loss of that 80 million pound move.
Can’t we sue the FA when he’s found innocent?
If we were Man City this would have been dismissed months ago. Sheer fear would have stopped the process. We need to be extremely firm in our response. I’m guessing the decision has been made. Probably not proven. The delay is likely to be the FA consulting their lawyers to work out how not to get their asses sued off. We should not take this lying down and go all the way for appropriate compensation. The whole situation clearly affected our star man and that resulted in a lower league position than would otherwise have been the case. Let’s see our board do something right – for a change.
Surely there must be some sort of time scale in this country where the law dictates where by a case is settled one way or another The only scenario here appears from the outside W Ham and Paqueta are being victimised
Surely a decent lawyer would have ended this farce by now?.I hope the FA is sued for a lot.
West Ham and Paqueta should have launched a counter suit against the FA there is no rational reason why this case has taken so long to get to a resolution, the bets are tiny which in theory doesn’t matter because it’s a rule of law but when you factor in how much this is costing for things which didn’t affect results of games and from what we can see are baseless allegations, hopefully we can sue the FA for 10’s of millions make them pay for their time wasting.