FA will not appeal against Paqueta decision

The Football Association will not appeal against the decision to clear West Ham midfielder Lucas Paqueta of four spot-fixing charges.

An independent regulatory commission hearing, which took place following an FA investigation, found four charges to be "not proven".

Written reasons detailing the commission's finding were published on Wednesday, calling into question the FA's decision not to call in independent expertise on the key area of betting data.

The FA started its investigation in August 2023 and Brazil international Paqueta was charged in May last year for allegedly getting booked deliberately "for the improper purpose of affecting the betting market".

The four charges against him related to a Premier League game against Leicester City on 12 November 2022, as well as 2023 fixtures against Aston Villa on 12 March, Leeds United on 21 May and Bournemouth on 12 August.

Paqueta was also charged with two counts of failing to co-operate with the investigation by breaching "FA rule F3 in respect of alleged failures to comply pursuant to FA rule F2", which relates to providing information and documents.

He also denied these charges, but the regulatory commission found them to be proven.

"The regulatory commission will decide an appropriate sanction for the breaches of FA rule F3 that were found proven and the details will be published at the earliest opportunity," said the FA, , external English football's governing body.

"The FA is committed to ensuring that the integrity of football is maintained, and full and thorough investigations will always be conducted into serious allegations of rule breaches."

Paqueta joined the Hammers from Lyon for an initial £36.5m in August 2022 and helped the club win the Europa Conference League in his debut season.

Why did the FA decide not to appeal?

A 314-page document , external prepared by Sports Resolutions - an independent and not-for-profit dispute resolution service - provided detail of the case.

A range of information - from former West Ham manager David Moyes' views on the yellow cards to conversations Paqueta's hairdresser mother Cristiane had in a salon back in Brazil - is covered by the commission's written findings.

The FA claimed 542 bets totalling £46,758.83 were staked by 253 different bettors with a collective return of £213,703.81, reflecting a net profit of £166,944.98.

However, the commission noted that the FA's case rested "entirely on circumstantial evidence" and the decision to tender evidence on the betting data from one of its own employees, betting integrity investigator Tom Astley, was an "oddity" and "an obvious flaw".

"In the commission's view, on what the FA have accepted was the most important element of its case, it simply did not call independent expert evidence," the commission said in the written findings.

"Instead, it relies on the evidence of its integrity investigator and asks the commission to accept that he has shown the impartiality that would have been expected of an independent expert."

In his evidence, Astley said the betting on Paqueta "appears highly orchestrated".

The commission said the FA's legal counsel subsequently disagreed with Astley's assessment and was "thus abandoning, without further explanation, its case on orchestration".

The FA said 27 of the 253 bettors could be linked to the player, but Paqueta maintained he only had a real relationship with five of the people.

He said he did not speak to the five regularly, and even then, rarely about football.

The commission concluded that an analysis of the betting data was not "illustrative of a spot-fix" and added it was "in many respects inconsistent with a spot-fix, but consistent with alternative explanations".

Nick De Marco, part of Paqueta's legal team, said: "I remain delighted for my client Lucas, cleared of all the serious charges of spot-fixing.

"The decision is understood to be the longest sports-related judgment ever issued in the world – a reflection of how serious the case was, the amount of evidence deployed in what was the biggest case in the FA's history."

'Within the normal range of actions'

Ex-West Ham manager Moyes, now in charge of Everton, and former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg, gave evidence on Paqueta's behalf from a performance perspective.

Moyes said he had "re-watched the yellow card incidents closely" and "consider them to be entirely within the normal range of actions for this player".

Clattenburg disagreed with findings presented by Stats Perform Integrity Services (SPIS) in support of the FA's case, and felt two of the four yellow cards should not have been shown.

"Each challenge is comfortably within the sphere of things that happen multiple times every match, both individually and when taken in conjunction with each other," Clattenburg said.

The commission concluded there was "nothing in Paqueta's on-field conduct" which advanced the FA's case that he had deliberately sought to be booked in any of the four games.

The commission found the FA's inability to locate one item of data from either of the player's mobile phones that even mentioned betting or had any connection to one of the four games related to the charges was a significant point in favour of Paqueta's defence and indicated he was being truthful about his lack of interest in gambling.

The FA accepted it could not be proved Paqueta had deliberately deleted any messages or contacts.

More than 300 deleted messages were recovered, none of which had anything to do with spot-fixing.

The commission said this was "a salient reminder to the commission not to jump to conclusions and the dangers of drawing adverse inferences from events unknown".