West Ham’s Lucas Paqueta (Mike Egerton/PA)
But the West Ham and Brazil midfielder still faces a sanction for failing to co-operate with the FA’s investigation.
Here, we dissect the commission’s written reasons in one of the biggest, and most complex, cases in the FA’s history.
The written reasons confirm the FA began investigating Paqueta after the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) notified it that an abnormal number of bets had been placed in Brazil on him to be yellow carded in four Premier League matches, in some cases by the same people. Those matches were against Leicester City on November 12, 2022, Aston Villa on March 12, 2023, Leeds United on May 21 of that year and Bournemouth on August 12.
The FA later found links between some of those individuals and Paqueta. But the commission noted that, unlike similar betting integrity prosecutions − including those of Kieran Trippier and Daniel Sturridge (both of whom were banned) − there was a “complete absence of any direct evidence that the player was in contact about fixing or betting with any of the bettors”. It said the FA had accepted its case relied “entirely on circumstantial evidence”.
It is as early as page 12 of the 314-page written reasons that the first major cracks emerge in the FA case. It is stated that “heavy reliance” had been placed on expert analysis of Paqueta’s mobile phones that culminated in accusations he had deleted scores of messages. The commission writes: “The FA accept that this evidence, specifically that which related to deletions evident from the player’s phones, no longer has the evidential value or weight that the FA originally considered it to have.
“This is as a consequence of the change of position on the part of the FA’s experts, Nathan Barker of CCL Solutions Group and Steven Llewelyn of Sytech, who later accepted that they agreed with the contrary opinion expressed by the player’s expert, Patrick Madden.” It later states: “The FA finding evidence of wrongdoing was not sustainable following the revelation that the messages had been deleted because a time sensitive automatic deletion function had been activated. The commission did not feel that it could draw any adverse inference against the player in respect of the method of deletion.”
It is stated in the next paragraph that the FA’s betting integrity investigator, Tom Astley, had provided a witness statement saying the activity in question “appears hugely orchestrated”, a position he maintained in oral evidence. But this was completely undermined by the FA’s own KC, Jonathan Laidlaw, who told the commission: “We disagree with Mr Astley.”
The commission later concludes: “By saying on this point that it ‘disagreed’ with its own witness, the commission’s confidence in the FA’s case could only be undermined. The clear appearance given to the commission was that the FA was not altogether certain what case it was presenting against the player.”
The written reasons cite a report by the IBIA to the FA on the day of the Leeds match. The report stated an alert was raised in the IBIA platform “for suspicious betting activity for Lucas Paqueta (West Ham) to be shown a card. Two further operators, and also reported suspicious betting on the same selection.
“The betting activity indicates involvement of Lucas Paqueta in any potential manipulation”. The commission says: “This last sentence is concerning to the commission, not least as this was the first formal report to the FA which ultimately led to these proceedings. In the commission’s view, the IBIA was simply not in a position to make such a statement, yet it was reporting to the FA that the betting activity indicated involvement on the part of the player.”
The commission states it is “surprising” an “independent expert” was not used − rather than Astley − to assess betting data being relied upon in the case against Paqueta. It says: “In circumstances where it was clearly and openly accepted by the FA that Mr Astley was not an independent expert, from the commission’s perspective the evidence presented by the FA on the betting data had an obvious flaw, namely the lack of an independent expert assessment of that data. That the FA chose to advance the most important element of its case without any such independent expert assessment of it was, in the commission’s view, surprising.”
Paqueta’s manager at West Ham during the period in question was among those to give evidence in support of the midfielder. Moyes, now at Everton, told the hearing: “If he had deliberately tried to get booked, I would have expected to see him do something silly or out of character like show serious dissent, throw the ball away from an opposition free-kick, or pull another player’s shirt in order to prevent a break. But he does not do any of those things − each yellow card is given in a dynamic tackle situation where \[he\] is working hard to recover.”
The written reasons chronicle how Paqueta answered “no comment to all of the questions asked of him” in his first interview with FA investigators “and in the second interview he answered no comment to many of the questions put to him”. It says this was done on the advice of his lawyer, Nick De Marco KC, amid a perceived failure by the FA to provide full disclosure of its case against Paqueta before the first interview.
But the commission is scathing of the FA’s refusal to give Paqueta another chance at the second interview to respond to questions he had refused to answer at the first. It states: “The commission wishes to record its surprise that at the investigation stage of what were clearly serious matters which could, and did, lead to serious charges which in turn led to a commission hearing lasting 20 days, the FA were apparently not interested in what the player had to say, notwithstanding his stance, taken on advice, in the first interview.” It goes on to conclude that, as a result, “any sanction imposed will be at the lower end of the scale”.