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It’s taken almost two years but the good news is that if you bet on Lucas Paquetá to be cleared of those gambling charges you can finally go and collect. And if the 12 that signifies a hurricane is the highest measure on the Beaufort scale, you can almost certainly bet your bottom dollar that the West Ham midfielder’s sigh of relief upon discovering he had been cleared of spot-fixing accusations registered in the very high teens. Had Paquetá been found guilty of charges he deliberately got booked on multiple occasions so that assorted folk back home in Brazil could make the staggeringly insignificant sums reported to have been involved in this alleged global conspiracy, he was staring straight down the barrel of a lifetime ban from football.
Having faced the possible ruin of his career and livelihood, not to mention the untold damage to his reputation that would have accompanied a guilty verdict, the 27-year-old is now free to continue playing, blissfully unencumbered by the giant boulder he has been carrying around on his shoulders since the accusations were levelled against him by the FA two years ago. And while he got there in the end and all’s well that ends well, it has now been suggested that both Paquetá and his famously litigious employers might now have grounds to sue the FA for both legal costs and the loss of tens of millions incurred by the entirely-related collapse of the player’s £85m move to Manchester City, shortly after the investigation was announced.
