West Ham United have put their full support behind Lucas Paqueta, who has been charged with betting irregularities by The Football Association.
The Brazilian robustly denies all charges against him. However, precedent suggests that he could be facing a career-ending 5-10 year ban from football if found guilty.
Paqueta was expected to join Manchester City in an £85 million transfer in July, but it’s now safe to assume that deal is off. It will now be a case of the player and his legal team fighting the allegations once they are aware of whatever evidence the FA has.
West Ham issued a statement in support of their player: “The club acknowledges receipt of the FA charge received by Lucas Paqueta for alleged breaches of their rules. Lucas categorically denies the breach and will continue to robustly defend his position.
The club will continue to stand by and support the player throughout the process and will make no further comment until the matter is concluded.”
I’m relying on the F.A.’s customary hopelessness. Would not surprise me if they bring a case with no real substance based on heresay and hope. If on the other hand, there really is a ‘smoking gun’ of evidence linking the player with the individuals such as phone records- then he is gone. Quite how the club then reclaims his wages and costs – who knows. Massive hole in the WHU finances. not for the first time. Let’s hope the bumbling FA are working to their usual incompetent standards.
Folk thinking he’s innocent???? Bets came from the Brazilian island he’s named after. Betting patterns around these specific matches spiked multiple times. Look at the four bookings and compare them to his other bookings – they look pretty deliberate in comparison. Can’t be having cheats in the team.
West ham need to support paqueta as he is an employee but let the lawyers do their job! And west ham need to plan life without paqueta so sign a replacement immediately! If he’s proven innocent then he will leave for city or Real Madrid anyway. So let’s put this distraction behind us WEST HAM are more important than one player! We need to rebuild our squad and team for the coming season and make west ham united great again COYI
Concerning these betting firms use algorithms and a1 to look for suspicious betting activity
My guess is the FA must have phone records that connect him to the charges?
What other evidence could they possibly have?
I imagine it would be very difficult for the FA to prove player involvement in these betting trends. Funny how it takes a year to build a case but the player only gets until June the 3rd to respond
The guy knocked up yellow cards left right and centre. All this proves is his fans were confident in 3/4 matches he’d get a yellow.
It’s the same as me putting a bet on that my mates 400 miles away up north will eat a kebab this weekend. Theres a chance it won’t happen if they’re too ill to go out that night but to me it’s almost a fact it will happen.
Not a big deal at all and not a chance in a million he will be found guilty.
Has anyone thought he might just be guilty?
Personally I believe that Paqueta is too much of a professional to be that stupid. The FA as usual are trying to make a point whilst ignoring the real issues in the game. I.e. VAR operation, Man City 115+ breaches, referee bias etc. Get a life FA⚒⚒⚒
Too much of a professional?! Did you see the yellow card the petulant **** was given in the first leg against Leverkusen? He stopped playing for us after that even when he was on the field.
If he’s not cleared but found guilty apart from the ban from football there could also be a criminal investigation which if found guilty he could find himself behind bars. So for his sake and ours let’s hope he gets cleared. If not I wonder whether he would be able to play for the prison football team or not.
That’s very true but probably unlikely.
Paqueta will get the top KCs in to represent him. The videos of the alleged incidents are not in themselves enough to find him guilty and of course any such finding is always subject to review by the courts so the FA need to get it right
Guilty as charged, as I’m sure the FA do their dudiligence. Start fining now and sue for. Misconduct to protect our club.
Don’t think it’s so much the obvious tackles, the huge bets that took place by people on he’s little island in Brazil that’s flagged up