Manchester United are willing to let Cameroon goalkeeper Andre Onana, 29, move to Saudi Arabia with the transfer window for the Pro League still open. (Teamtalk), external
Brazil midfielder Casemiro, 33, chose to stay at Manchester United rather than move to Al-Nassr to help his chances of playing at the 2026 World Cup. (Goal), external
Chelsea's England forward Raheem Sterling, 30, France defender Axel Disasi, 27, and Brazil midfielder Andrey Santos, 21, could all make moves to Saudi Arabia before the Pro League transfer window closes. (Sport - in Spanish), external
Former Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou is one of the candidates being considered to take over as Bayer Leverkusen manager following the sacking of Erik ten Hag. (Sky Sports Germany), external
Tottenham could re-open talks with Manchester City over a deal for 30-year-old Netherlands defender Nathan Ake in January. (Caughtoffside), external
Turkish club Fenerbahce, who recently dismissed Jose Mourinho, could also be an option for Postecoglou, 60, who led Spurs to victory in the Europa League last season before being sacked. (Fabrizio Romano) , external
Brazil winger Antony, 25, says he spoke to Bayern Munich before completing a move from Manchester United to Real Betis, where he had a stint on loan last season. (El Partidazo, via Mirror) , external
Arsenal were open to selling Brazil winger Gabriel Martinelli, 24, at the start of the summer but their £60m asking price put off clubs who valued him closer to £40m. (Mail - subscription required), external
Juventus had been working on a deal to sign France forward Randal Kolo Muani, 26, from Paris St-Germain for months only to be pipped by Tottenham. (Gazzetta dello Sport - in Italian), external
Manchester United are still interested in strengthening their midfield options but director of football Jason Wilcox does not see it as the top priority. (Sky Sports), external
Arsenal and Barcelona are both showing strong interest in Nottingham Forest's 23-year-old Brazilian defender Murillo. (Caughtoffside), external
Nottingham Forest forward Jota Silva, 26, could still leave for Saudi Arabia or Turkey after seeing a deadline-day move to Sporting collapse with Saudi Pro League side Neom SC keen on the Portugal international. (Talksport), external
Forest are keen to raise funds following a busy summer transfer window which brought 13 arrivals to the first-team squad. (The Athletic - subscription required), external
Former Wolves boss Gary O'Neil is not rushing back to management but waiting for the right opportunity having spoken to "some fantastic clubs" since he left Molineux. (Telegraph - subscription required)
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DAILY MIRROR
Emi Martinez claims he is "happy" despite missing out on a dream move to Manchester United.
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Bruno Fernandes has been branded "childish" by former Liverpool striker John Aldridge - who claimed he is not fit to captain Manchester United.
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West Ham have offered to meet groups of supporters who are planning to boycott two home fixtures and stage a protest outside the London Stadium before each game.
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Imane Khelif has the right to appeal against World Boxing's decision barring her from events unless she undergoes genetic sex testing but the Algerian has not entered the world championships in Liverpool, the World Boxing president, Boris van der Vorst, has said.
Rory McIlroy believes Europe's Ryder Cup team should follow the grand slam record title-holder Novak Djokovic's example when it comes to dealing with American hostility in New York this month.
The Hundred franchises are in dispute over new rules for signing players next season amid moves from some of the new investors to break up the Oval Invincibles all-conquering men's squad, who won the competition for the third successive year on Sunday.
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Luca Brecel faces possible sanction after conceding his season-opening snooker match after two completed frames and having potted just seven points.
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An England Under-17s football match was delayed twice following reports of racist abuse aimed at the players.
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The Athletic
Lucas Paqueta ruling explained: FA’s poor use of data, Moyes vs analysts, Clattenburg’s criticism
By Philip Buckingham and Andrew Fifield
The written reasons explaining why West Ham United and Brazil’s Lucas Paqueta was cleared of the Football Association’s four spot-fixing charges were published in their exhaustive detail yesterday, with high-profile witnesses called and days of evidence delivered.
The “longest sports-related judgement ever issued in the world“ was the view of Nick De Marco, one of the UK’s most eminent legal figures — and he ought to know.
A hearing that spanned almost 12 weeks had threatened to end Paqueta’s career with a lifetime ban but it was the FA left bruised at the end of its two-year investigation.
An independent panel were strongly critical of a case considered to be “contradictory” in parts and at times “defying logic”.
The verdict’s 314 pages ultimately document how Paqueta was able to continue his Premier League and international career when the FA’s charges were found to be “not proven”.
The Athletic picks through the Commission’s findings.
What were the bets?
The entire case was built around four West Ham United games inside nine months where Paqueta was shown a yellow card; a 2-0 home defeat to Leicester City in November 2022, a 1-1 draw at home to Aston Villa in March 2023, a 3-1 victory over Leeds United in May 2023 and the 1-1 draw away to Bournemouth on the opening day of the 2023-24 season.
Charges followed an FA investigation in May of last year, with Paqueta said to have “intentionally” sought a caution “for the improper purpose of affecting the betting market”. It all led to a hearing that spanned almost three months at the International Resolution Centre in London this spring.
The FA alleged that 253 separate bettors put money on Paqueta being booked in at least one of those games, with combined stakes of £46,758.83 returning £213,703.81, a profit of approximately £167,000.
It was also said that Paqueta had links to 26 of those bettors based in Brazil but the player argued that he had a “real relationship” with just five.
“I do want to make clear at the outset that of course we accept that, stripped of context and analysis, some of the data looks suspicious,” said Nick De Marco, head of Paqueta’s legal team, said in his opening speech.
Forensic analysis of the bets placed, though, was enough to pick holes in the FA’s evidence. It was made clear that of the 253 bettors, only three placed bets on all four games where Paqueta was cautioned, and just nine placed bets on three of the four games.
Almost 30 of the verdict’s 314 pages were dedicated to assessments of the bets placed by individuals, with names and links to Paqueta redacted throughout to protect identities.
One individual, who it was accepted had a “real relationship” with Paqueta, placed yellow card bets in all four games under the spotlight totalling £782 to return £3,800. One of those bets was £115 but it was heard the same person had placed almost £1,000 on the corners market of a fixture not involving Paqueta just two days earlier.
“In the Commission’s view these figures undermine the suggestion of an enhanced level of confidence reflecting a spot-fix,” it said.
A succession of accounts that backed Paqueta to be booked came under the spotlight but the FA’s assertion that their evidence exposed an “orchestrated” operation was not successful. Benjamin Patterson, an expert witness for Paqueta’s legal team, instead called the betting patterns “extremely unsophisticated”.
Poor use of data
A key plank of the FA’s case against Paqueta was data — but it also proved one of its weak spots.
Analysis of the four suspicious matches by Stats Perform Integrity Services (SPIS) uses several metrics which would be familiar to most football fans, such as how many fouls Paqueta committed, defensive duels he contested and tackles he attempted, all derived from Opta statistics.
In every game apart from the one against Leeds, SPIS notes that the Brazilian recording much higher than average tackle, defensive duel and foul statistics had led to “significant concerns… over the integrity of Paqueta’s performance in the match”.
Yet the player was able to use data to his own advantage to show that his behaviour in these fixtures was not out of the ordinary. In his written submission, Paqueta notes that in his first full season at West Ham (2022-23, when three of the suspicious games took place) he collected yellow cards at a rate of once every 430 minutes or 4.8 games, “lower than the average ‘rate’ of yellow cards across my career” and in keeping with his high-energy style as a player.
His view was endorsed by Tim Keech, from MRKT Insights, whose analysis showed that “based on the data, (Paqueta’s) behaviours and actions in the (suspicious games) are not inconsistent with his behaviours and actions in his career more generally.” The Commission said it found Keech’s data analysis “compelling”.
SPIS also pointed out that the probability of Paqueta receiving a card in each of the four suspicious games was approximately 0.61 per cent, and therefore highly suspicious.
This data, too, was attacked by Paqueta’s witnesses, with Bob Scott, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, observing that low probability events are relatively commonplace in football.
He cited examples such as Chelsea’s Mark Cucurella receiving five yellow cards (a probability of 0.075 per cent), Liverpool forward Mo Salah scoring in seven consecutive matches (0.68 per cent) and Manchester City losing four games in a row (0.02 per cent), all of which had been realised despite the low odds.
The Commission’s view was that SPIS was “looking for statistical evidence to fit the FA’s case” and that it had fallen victim to confirmation bias — that it was aware the bookings had been flagged as suspicious and was therefore trying to find reasons to explain why they were.
The Commission was also unimpressed by Jackson continuing to promote SPIS’ data around the location on the pitch and timing of Paqueta’s bookings during the game during cross-examination, despite the fact that the FA had abandoned this evidence.
Moyes is a fan of Paqueta – but not analysts
Moyes, the former West Ham manager, proved to be a key witness for Paqueta’s case.
His analysis of Paqueta’s performances in the four games under scrutiny was that his fouls were simply typical of an attacking midfielder trying — not very successfully — to help his team defensively.
Describing Paqueta in his written evidence as a “maverick”, Moyes was lavish in his praise about his creative ability but less effusive about his tackling.
“He plays in a high-risk, high-reward way and he does, therefore, have a tendency to give the ball away,” he wrote. “Defensively, (he) does not have quite the same level of ability. However, he is a physical specimen and would work extremely hard in defence… he would work hard to get it back, but sometimes he could make a poor choice or be a little rash.”
Moyes was adamant that, having rewatched the yellow card incidents, he considered all to “be entirely within the normal range of actions for this player”.
The Scot’s oral evidence, when being cross-examined by the FA’s legal counsel, was more colourful. He took umbrage at being asked to read the SPIS report from the Leicester match in November 2022, saying: “I don’t see any point in me reading something if it’s from people who are only analysts and have no football experience.”
Eventually, the FA’s lawyer took the report away from Moyes and got him to talk through video clips of the incident himself. Ultimately, when weighing up the value of the evidence offered by Moyes and Jackson from SPIS, it sided decisively with the Scot, saying in its conclusions that “it did not consider (Jackson) to be an expert in the assessment of footballing action in the same way, for example, Mr Moyes… can claim to be.”
The Manchester City transfer that never happened
An intriguing sub-plot to the fourth suspicious match, against Bournemouth on August 12, 2023, centres on Paqueta being the subject of significant transfer interest from Manchester City.
City’s interest in the player had been reported by The Athletic on August 9, and Moyes confirmed in his evidence that he had spoken to the player about his future on a daily basis in the build-up to the Bournemouth game.
In his written evidence, Moyes says that by August 10 or 11, “it had become clear that the deal would likely be done” and that Paqueta was concerned that he could be injured playing for West Ham, thus scuppering his chances of a move.
He asked Moyes whether he could be left out of the team for the Bournemouth match, but the Scot wrote that he “persuaded him to play on the basis that, if the game was going well (or even if it was going badly and we were unlikely to recover from a two or three goal deficit), I would substitute him early to help minimise the risk of injury.”
In the event, Paqueta played virtually the whole game, only being taken off in the fourth minute of added time, shortly after he collected his yellow card.
Paqueta’s pre-match talks with Moyes were significant, as it meant his legal team could argue that a player who had specifically asked to be left out of the team was highly unlikely to have also been at the centre of a plot to spot-fix in it.
Jack Johnson, senior performance integrity analyst with SPIS, admitted during cross-examination by Paqueta’s legal team that he had not factored in the player’s request not to play in his Performance Integrity Report (PIR) on the Bournemouth match.
Asked by De Marco whether he would have included it in his PIR had he known about it, and if it would have been relevant to the suspicion grading the match received (it was awarded a 4 out of 5, indicating a strong degree of suspicion), he replied: “Yes, it would be a piece of intelligence that I think we would consider if we had that information.”
Clattenburg’s criticisms
Another star witness was Mark Clattenburg, the former Premier League referee.
Clattenburg, whose post-refereeing commitments have ranged from acting as a consultant to Nottingham Forest to starring on the UK television show Gladiators, was asked by Paqueta’s legal team to pass observation on the four games being viewed as suspicious.
It’s clear from his written evidence that Clattenburg, a divisive figure during his own career, had little time for SPIS’ analysis of the incidents involving Paqueta — the phrase “I disagree with this conclusion” crops up repeatedly — or, indeed, for some of the referees’ decisions themselves.
He says that Paqueta was unfortunate to receive a yellow card in two of the four matches under examination (Leicester and Leeds), and that he did not necessarily agree with the decision to book him against Bournemouth. None of the bookings, he said, made him suspicious that Paqueta was deliberately trying to get himself cautioned.
The Commission was swayed by Clattenburg’s expertise, saying that his view of the incidents was of greater import than Jackson’s.
Deleted phone data and WhatsApp chats
Another thread that the FA attempted to pull on involved two iPhones belonging to Paqueta. Recovering data and messages had been key to their investigation and it was initially suggested that large amounts had been deleted. Recovery of that was complicated after it was said that one device had been given “to the family nanny as a Christmas gift and taken to Brazil” and the other had been exchanged for an upgraded device.
There were 345 messages eventually found to have been deleted between downloads but, when recovered, were between Paqueta and his mother and another individual. None were incriminating and Paqueta claimed the deletions had been to help navigate family tensions.
The player’s explanation for deleting another tranche of chats is that they related to his potential investment in X1, a type of two-on-two football. Those messages were said to include finances, which Paqueta did not want family members to see because they disapproved of the investment.
One particular message in a WhatsApp group had also drawn the attention of investigators. A friend, saved as Lucas Paqueta Gaming, said that a certain Brazilian player would get booked. It transpired, with evidence given from the sender, it was posted in an online gaming group who all played Counterstrike, and it was joked that the player who would pick up a third yellow card in order to be suspended and free to participate in a gaming session. The Commission accepted the argument that the message was indeed an innocent joke.
Tellingly, there was no evidence at all that either of Paqueta’s phones referenced betting and the innocent nature of the 345 recovered messages was “a salient reminder to the Commission not to jump to conclusions and the dangers of drawing adverse inferences from events unknown”.
Salon small talk
Paqueta’s close relationship — and conversations — with his mother, Christiane Tolentino, became a point of interest in the case. She worked in a hairdressing salon in Rio de Janeiro bought, in part, through money gifted by Paqueta when moving to Milan from Flamengo in 2019 and it was speculated that her observations could have been interpreted as information to shape betting patterns.
“It is possible that I might have said something to someone about Lucas’ mood being low… It never crossed my mind that this kind of information might have been relied upon by people wanting to bet on my son,” said Tolentino in a written statement submitted.
She was later asked, under cross-examination, if Paqueta had ever said “anything useful to a bettor placing a bet on Lucas to be carded”. Her response was emphatic. “Never, we have never spoken in any type of issue like that or theme like that. That doesn’t make part of my son’s character.”
One witness called, however, accepted that Paqueta’s mother had unwittingly shaped his betting approach.
The unidentified person, who was the only bettor to give evidence, said that he had been told a second-hand conversation with Tolentino had suggested Paqueta was “upset about the situation at West Ham” and, coupled with his own understanding of the player’s style, had convinced him a yellow card would be worth backing in the defeat to Leicester City.
A stake of £117 was placed on that outcome but the same individual later placed a bet of over £1,000 for Paqueta to score in the visit of Leeds United, on the tip the Brazilian was “fired up”, only to lose out.
The conclusions (and consequences?)
This was undeniably a chastening defeat for the FA, who it was made clear had been unable to prove that “spot fixing is more likely than any of the potential innocent explanations”.
The case, the Commission said, was built upon accumulated circumstantial evidence but the individual “strands” were all too weak. It was also said to be improbable that a player of Paqueta’s standing would engage in spot fixing due to the risks to his career, his wealth and a lack of interest in gambling.
The conclusion was that the betting patterns were instead a consequence of “hot tips” and perceived inside information being passed around in Brazil.
“This judgment shows that Lucas had to go to great lengths to prove his innocence,” said Alastair Campbell, partner at the law firm Level and the head of Paqueta’s legal team.
“Only by taking such a comprehensive approach was he able to demonstrate that so-called ‘suspicious’ betting patterns did not indicate spot-fixing, and that his performances in the relevant matches were not those of a player trying to be carded.
“The evidence not only showed he has no interest in gambling whatsoever, but confirmed that his integrity as both a player and a person is beyond doubt.”
The FA’s defeat might also come at a cost. There is an expectation that Paqueta’s legal team will pursue their client’s legal costs due to what they believe to be a flawed investigation. That could amount to a seven-figure sum.
The FA will not appeal the verdict.
(Top photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)