Lucas Paqueta to consider legal action against FA after acquittal for spot-fixing charges | OneFootball

West Ham star’s lawyer sets out his client’s options after judgment on two-year investigation

It will be left up to Lucas Paqueta as to whether he sues the FA for lost earnings and pushes for them to pay his £1million legal fees after his acquittal for spot-fixing charges, the head lawyer of his legal team has told Standard Sport.

Campbell declared it the “most complicated” case he has worked on.

Paqueta was set to leave West Ham and join Man City for £85m on a lucrative deal in August 2023 before it first emerged he was being investigated for misconduct.

Paqueta’s move to City broke down immediately. Then, in May 2024, he was charged with four counts of intentionally influencing betting markets by deliberately getting himself booked in four Premier League matches between November 2022 and August 2023 — allegations which went unproven after a two-year investigation which ended last Friday. The result was made public on Thursday.

The evidence used in the case will become public knowledge when the FA publishes its ‘Written Reasons’ document. Well-placed sources have told Standard Sport these are expected to arrive “in the next couple of weeks” and will likely run to “hundreds of pages”. It is understood that David Moyes, the West Ham manager at the time the investigation began, gave evidence as part of the case.

It has been widely reported that the FA were seeking a lifetime ban from football for Paqueta if he had been found guilty of spot-fixing charges.

Campbell said on this topic: “There wasn’t a great deal of discussion on what the sanctions might have been if he was found guilty. There are only really a couple of similar cases from the past which were six years and ten years for a single charge. If Lucas had been found guilty of four charges — he’s 27 — whether that’s 15 years or a life-time ban, it’s career-ending whichever way you look at it.”

The lawyer described the case as “intense” and admitted: “It is a case that has been almost unprecedented in its complexity. Look at the length of time it’s taken, how long we had in the hearing to go through mountains of evidence. Two years is an unprecedented length of time for an FA case like this.

“I can’t go into the details until we get the written reasons, but there are organisations that monitor movements in the betting market and what they call ‘suspicious patterns’. As is the case in most cases like this, that is what triggered the investigation. There were multiple strands of evidence to deal with, each of which was incredibly detailed and required an incredibly detailed response.

“It has been quite an experience. High pressure. The consequences for the client, if we had got it wrong, would have been terminal. It would be fair to say that none of us have ever done something as complicated before.

“He has carried himself incredibly well. It must have been the most stressful experience imaginable for a professional footballer. Lucas was one day dreaming of a move to Man City and the next was told it could all be taken away. The phrase mentality monster gets bandied around these days. He really is.

“He is a very down-to-earth and funny guy. He’s very grateful and has expressed that. He has been in the United States with West Ham so we haven’t seen him since the news was announced, but we’ll be able to celebrate with him when he’s back in London. That’s an unwritten plan. It’s always a good thing to acknowledge successes.”

Asked whether Paqueta will be pursuing the FA for lost earnings or to have his legal fees paid having won the case, Campbell revealed: “It is going to be a client-driven decision.”

While Paqueta was acquitted of the four spot-fixing charges, he was found guilty of two breaches of FA Rule F3. These relate to allegations that Paqueta failed “to comply with his obligations to answer questions and provide information to the FA's investigation”.

These upheld charges were put to Campbell, who maintained that Paqueta — who professed his innocence throughout the case — had given “a remarkable amount of cooperation to the investigation”.

Campbell said: “There’s not a great deal I can say because we haven’t seen the written reasons so I don’t know why that charge has been upheld.

“It is still a very serious charge and one we’re treating with the appropriate level of seriousness. But it is significantly less serious than the spot-fixing charges. It is something we will review closely. Lucas has given a remarkable amount of cooperation to the investigation, so it is something we will have to consider.”

It is anticipated that Paqueta’s punishment for his failure to fully comply will be a fine.

“We will come at it from a different end of the scale to the FA, and we are in somewhat uncharted waters here,” Campbell admitted. “There is little that we can go back on [as precedent].”

On Thursday afternoon, leading sports lawyer Yasin Patel of Church Court Chambers told Standard Sport that the verdict served as an “embarrassment” for the FA and would leave English football’s governing body with a “bloody nose”.

These quotes were put to Campbell, who said: “I don’t think ‘embarrassment’ is the right word. You have to remember that the FA is a regulator. When a regulator brings a case, it doesn’t think in terms of winning or losing; it wants the right answer. We’re very happy that the right answer has been reached.”