SHOCKING NEWS;West ham announces the sudden retirement of Lucas Paqueta due to…

Lucas Paqueta is set to face his FA hearing later this month as ExWHUEmployee speaks to an expert in the matter.

Reporting this week on The West Ham Way Podcast, the club insider revealed that he’d interviewed an expert on betting, match fixing and gambling integrity – however we are protecting their identity.

What exactly are the charges against Lucas Paqueta?

The charges as a whole relate to Spot Fixing in four matches for financial gain. Spot Fixing is manipulating an element of a match that isn’t directly related to the result.

How did he get found out?

There are many myths surrounding how he was found out. First and foremost – West Ham’s shirt sponsor Betway have been accused of flagging up Paqueta. This isn’t strictly true.

Most companies including Betway have automatic alerts set up on the easiest to manipulate markets (cards etc) and the automatic alert triggered for a Paqueta card with Betway during the season in question. This would be like blaming your smoke alarm for grassing you up for burning your dinner – it’s automatically set to go off if it detects smoke.

No human intervention plays a part to say “we sponsor that club – so we better not”. Another myth is that’s the trigger that found him charged. It wasn’t. It’s understood that other games and other companies make up the actual evidence the FA will be using.

How likely is he to get convicted of these charges? What does his lawyer have to prove to get him off the charges?

Without prejudging Paqueta’s defence – and let’s remember he denies everything – the one thing that cannot be determined is if someone purposely has done something (you can’t read their mind at the time of the incident).

Many ‘fixing’ cases in the past have fallen down at this hurdle. So balance of probabilities will be the FA route.