After slipping down the news agenda for a couple of months, the Lucas Paqueta spot-fixing case was back in the headlines in Brazil ahead of the international break.
The English FA charged Paqueta in May with breaching its betting regulations. The case relates to four yellow cards picked up by Paqueta in West Ham matches between November 2022 and August 2023. The FA alleges that the midfielder “directly sought to influence (…) these matches by intentionally seeking to receive a card from the referee for the improper purpose of affecting the betting market in order for one or more persons to profit from betting”.
Paqueta has denied any wrongdoing. No date has been set for a final verdict.
The FA case relates to Paqueta alone. Another name was also flagged in Brazil when the suspect betting patterns were reported last year: Luiz Henrique, who currently plays for Botafogo in his homeland. An unusually high number of bets were placed on Paqueta and Luiz Henrique — then at Real Betis in Spain — to both be booked on two separate weekends early in 2023. Luiz Henrique also denies any wrongdoing and he is not facing any investigations.
The latest update came from the Brazilian website UOL, which reported that two relatives of Paqueta — his uncle, Bruno Tolentino, and his cousin, Yan Tolentino — made payments totalling 40million Brazilian Reias (around £6.4m or $7.8m at the time) to Luiz Henrique in January and February 2023.
Paqueta being shown a yellow (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
According to UOL, the first payment went through on January 30, 2023. Two days earlier, Luiz Henrique had played for Betis against Getafe. He was booked in that match. UOL reported that the second payment occurred on February 6, 2023, two days after a match between Betis and Celta Vigo. Luiz Henrique played 11 minutes of that game and was shown a yellow card.
Bruno Tolentino confirmed to UOL that the payments were made, claiming they were related to a personal loan. Luiz Henrique’s agent, Junior Mendonza, denied any wrongdoing on the part of the player.
The story rippled through Brazilian football. John Textor, the American owner of Botafogo, expressed anger at the timing of it, claiming it was an attempt to destabilise his team two days before a big Copa Libertadores game. The real reaction, though, came three days later when Brazil coach Dorival Junior named his squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Chile and Peru.
It included both Paqueta and Luiz Henrique.
On one level, this was no great surprise. After initially being left out of the Brazil setup — Paqueta from the senior side, Luiz Henrique from the under-23s — when the allegations first came to light last year, both players had since been reintegrated. Paqueta played at the Copa America. Luiz Henrique made his senior Brazil debut against Ecuador in September.
The position of Brazil’s football federation, the CBF, has always been that the players are innocent until proven guilty. The federation’s president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, released a lengthy statement defending Paqueta’s selection for the Copa America in May. He said he had quizzed the English FA about the case and did not view a suspension — formal or informal — as fair.
“Paqueta (…) has not yet been punished by the body responsible for prosecuting and sanctioning him,” the statement read. “No one can be considered guilty until a final judgement has been passed (and thus) the CBF cannot (…) penalise the player and ban him from playing for the national team.”
Rodrigues echoed those lines recently, but the selection of both players in the squad so soon after UOL’s story created a newfound feeling of unease — one not assuaged by Dorival ducking a question about it at his press conference.
Even on the most generous reading of the situation, even accepting that neither player has yet been found guilty of anything, with Luiz Henrique not even under investigation, you would have to say the optics are far from ideal. The CBF’s position, though, does chime with a broader sense of inertia surrounding the case outside the UK.
In Spain, for instance, extremely little has been made of Luiz Henrique’s alleged involvement, despite the fact he played in La Liga at the time. The local federation, the RFEF, says it is awaiting a briefing from its own disciplinary committee. There is no investigation open and relatively little interest from the Spanish media.
Luiz Henrique plays for Botafogo in Brazil (Lucas Figueiredo/Getty Images)
This wait-and-see approach has the benefit of not requiring any legwork. Perhaps the English FA’s final verdict will spur its Spanish counterpart into life. But for now, it looks a lot like sheer inaction.
The CBF could reasonably argue that its responsibilities are different. None of the alleged breaches took place in matches under its jurisdiction, after all. If the FA finds Paqueta guilty, it is likely that any punishment would be taken up by FIFA and applied globally.
But these are Brazilian players and this was Brazilian money. While Paqueta’s club, West Ham United, might be entering into a legal minefield if they suspended him preemptively, a national team is not bound by the same employment rights. It is representative football.
Unlike in Spain, this has been a big story in Brazil. Journalists are following it with interest, as are politicians: both Paqueta and Luiz Henrique were invited to speak at a parliamentary committee last year as part of a wider inquiry into sports betting and possible manipulation. Neither appeared; the expectation is that Paqueta will be called again.
Watch the Brazilian national team, however, and you’d be forgiven for thinking there was no case to answer. Paqueta will almost certainly be in the starting XI when the Selecao play Chile in Santiago this week. Within the Brazil setup, the only real debate over his presence in the side centres on his shaky recent form. A similar logic applies to Luiz Henrique.
Until it is resolved, this case is one giant grey area. No one should be prosecuted before the fact. The existence of so much doubt, though, should provoke action rather than its opposite. Spain should be looking at the allegations regarding Luiz Henrique much more closely. Brazil, meanwhile, should err on the side of caution and leave both players out until the matter is properly resolved.
“Paqueta being in the national team is a grave error,” the president of the parliamentary betting inquiry, Senator Jorge Kajuru, said in June. It is hard to argue with that assessment.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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