Lucas Paqueta’s FA disciplinary hearing has been on the radar for the player, the club, supporters and the wider footballing community for nearly a year, since the FA announced they would be charging the West Ham player with with four counts of spot-fixing and two of obstructing an FA investigation.
Paqueta has always denied the allegations.
According to Matt Hughes in the guardian.co.uk, Paquetá’s estimated three week FA hearing starts – today.
The stakes could not be higher. The FA are said to be pushing for a lifetime ban if Lucas Paquetá is found guilty, whilst West Ham would lose £80 million worth of asset from their balance sheets and their most talented player would be history.
One can only imagine the impact on the player himself.
The burden of proof, unlike in a criminal trial, is just on the ‘balance of probability’ rather than ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ which means a much lower threshold for the three man panel who are set to consider evidence presented in a private hearing during the next few weeks.
As the Guardian states, “Paquetá has cooperated fully with the FA throughout the investigation, handing over phone records, bank statements and his mobile. He was interviewed formally in October 2023 before being charged with four breaches of FA Rule E5 and two of Rule E3. One of the alleged Rule E3 breaches in relation to failure to cooperate is understood to be based on the fact that Paquetá threw away his old mobile after it had been returned to him by the FA, because he had bought a new handset in the interim.”
More follows when made public.
Question who are paying these three people who are to judge him
Also this kangaroo court on the basis of probability
On thar basis you would not cross the road
Basis of probability you may get run over
Farcical
If the accusers had a real case they would have taken him to a real court not as l said this already biased kangaroo set up
There rests my case
Come on, even my West Ham mates think he cheats!
Probability means absolutely nothing in real law terms, so if they find him guilty and ban him they can expect a lawsuit to follow, you can’t ruin someone’s career and life on the balance of probability so they need hard evidence fact. Also he has assisted them fully in their enquiry as stated by the fa, the fact that who threw his old mobile away is neither here nor there, he handed it over and they had all the time they needed to access any information on the phone and who the f*** keeps old mobiles most people i know either sell them or dispose of them as they no longer have any use once you have a new one. They fa are walking a tightrope with this. And employment law also comes into it, he has a right to a fair hearing and should be allowed to continue his career as a right of appeal which he will be allowed to do. Of course you have to accept that the fa is corrupt itself and are on the payroll of the bookmakers. How many times have we all heard about the corruption of all of those associations including fifa it’s more rife than people would have you believe.
So if the FA do find him guilty on the balance of probability and ban him but he can take it to the court of arbitration who may have a higher burden of proof, are we still liable for his wages before his appeal is heard? It would be good to know that us or him could then sue the FA if he is later cleared.
And presumably if we loose him for say 6 mths but he wins the appeal, we would be able to go after the FA for the loss of our asset for that period. Based on the figures quoted below this should be atleast £3m so you would think they would be very cautious about banning him
It was to be presumed that when the FA took his phone, it was forensically analysed and all ‘evidence’ if any, downloaded.
This sounds strange then why they would want it back again? Are they admitting they did not carry out a professional investigation.
Sounds like they do not know what they are doing.
If Paqueta answered all their questions and provided the phone for their investigation, it is very difficult to understand the failure to cooperate charges
Eighty million asset on the balance sheet? How many more times will you repeat this nonsense? His ‘value’ on the balance sheet is his original cost (36 million) less the payments since that purchase in August 2022. There were some add ons that might have been triggered. His book ‘value’ is more likely around twenty million.
The whole “refusal to cooperate” thing is the biggest pile of nonsense I’ve heard… at least from what has been reported, anyway.
It seems they asked for his phone, he gave them it. They kept it for around 2-3 months and gave it back. By that point, he’d obviously got himself a new phone so had thrown his old one out.
Unless they specifically said “We may need it again so don’t get rid of it” then there’s nothing to answer to. I can’t imagine they would have because by that point, why would he not have said “Well, I’ve no use for it now so you can keep a hold of it.” Know I certainly would have.
To put the tinfoil hat on, it sounds like an act of entrapment because they knew he’d throw it out and they could use that as “proof” of being uncooperative.
Total embarrassment for FA. They jumped on Betway Brazil bandwagon thinking they had to be seen to be doing something. Now they are hoping for a way for this to end without anyone losing their job.
We all need to move on.
Hearing will end with a warning to Lucas Paqueta about future behaviour and offering a lesson to all sportsmen concerning ‘involvement’ in betting.
The fa need to tread very carefully because if as seems likely it ends up in a sport of arbitration and not just heresay of probability this escalates into a criminal court which there is no concrete evidence to strip a person of their lively hood the fa will end up with a massive law suit and egg on their face
Forget the lower burden of proof as ultimately the case will not turn on that if he were to be banned.
If he were to be banned then it would eventually end up at the court for arbitration in sport who have a sliding burden of proof.
In the event of serious bans the burden of proof slides upwards to similar to the criminal burden of proof of beyond reasonable doubt.
He will not ultimately be banned on balance of probability.
sounds more to me like he said she said but i suppose to go this far they must believe they know something let’s just hope his brief a as good for him as he was for his last client
The FA took his mobile phone as part of their investigation so of course you would expect Paqueta to buy a new one. When the FA had finished with his old phone and, presumably, found nothing to incriminate him then of course Paqueta didn’t need his old phone anymore. So he threw it away. Simples. What’s wrong with that? The FA can’t force him to keep it.