The FA ‘Lucas Paqueta yellow cards for bets’ inquiry has been running for two weeks in almost total secrecy. What has leaked out is the mind blowing scale of the accusations – tiny amounts of money are alleged to have been wagered: Not the millions, hundreds, tens or even thousands of pounds we had feared or almost been led to expect from the magnitude of the charges and the totality of the punishment the FA a pushing for: A life time ban. News reached us last week of the scale of most of the bets: Fifty pounds, thirty pounds. Less.
Not that it makes the magnitude of the allegations any less serious but an 18 month investigation suggested some kind of global conspiracy.
Just this afternoon from Claret and Hugh’s associate editor Sean Whetstone’s twitter account comes news of the state of the hearing:
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“A club source has claimed his information is the hearing will run beyond the end of next week (Friday 4 April) but it is hard to predict when the case might be completed.
Equally hard to predict is when any verdict will be published with insiders suggesting any guilty verdict could be delayed until the end of the season on 25 May to mitigate any risk of lawsuits pending an appeal which almost definitely be filed.”
And then, in comments no doubt for the benefit of outside observes and those taking part in the hearing, the opinion of Paquetá’s own legal team who have now sat through the two weeks and listened first hand to every shred of ‘evidence’ that the FA has offered.
“Paqueta’s legal team which includes barrister Nick DeMarco believes the West Ham player will be acquitted of the match-fixing charges due to lack of direct evidence implicating their client.”
Paqueta denies all of the allegations against him.