Lucas Paquetá is summoned by CPI after not responding to invitation

After receiving an invitation to participate in the Football Manipulation CPI and not responding, the midfielder Lucas Paqueta, from West Ham, will be obliged to present himself to the committee after the member deputies approve his summons, in a session held on Monday night (4). Being summoned means that, if the player does not show up, the CPI can ask for coercive conductas happened with Ronaldinho Gaúcho at the Financial Pyramids CPI.

The commission offers Paquetá the possibility of participating via video call, as he lives in London, England. It is also possible that he will be personally represented by his lawyer.

The midfielder is being investigated for involvement with sports betting, as well as Luiz Henrique, a striker for Betis, in Spain, who, unlike Paquetá, responded to the invitation of deputies and can be heard remotely this week. The most likely, however, is that Luiz Henrique will participate only next week, because of the September 7th holiday.

During this Monday’s session, the CPI for Manipulation of Results also approved the invitation to the president of the CBF, Ednaldo Rodrigues, to the director of competitions of the entity, Júlio Avellar, and to the director of integrity Rômulo Reis. The committee will wait for the return of the guests. If you are unable to take them to the Chamber, you can resort to the same procedure adopted with Paquetá and turn the invitation into a summons.

This Tuesday (5), the CPI will hear representatives of the Sports Radar, hired by the CBF to monitor the beginning of fraud in football. The company presented a report denouncing Paquetá and Luiz Henrique, mentioning the matches West Ham x Aston Villa, for the English Championship, and Villareal x Bétis, for Espanyol, both played on March 12

The investigated bets would have been made in Duque de Caxias, in Rio de Janeiro, on the company’s website betway, a bookmaker that sponsors West Ham, on accounts associated with people close to the player. These accounts would have made matched bets to increase the gains, which is why they would also have involved Luiz Henrique.

To win, it was necessary for both athletes to take a yellow card, which happened on March 12, when West Ham drew 1-1 with Aston Villa, in the Premier League, and Betis also tied for the same score. with Villarreal, for La Liga. Both were cautioned with the card in the second half of each match.

RESEARCH IN ENGLAND

A yellow card received by Lucas Paquetá in West Ham’s first official game in the 2022/2023 season reinforced suspicions of the English Football Association (FA) about the involvement of the Brazilian midfielder with betting. Upon becoming aware of the warning, the organization accelerated the investigations it had been conducting for five months, according to information obtained by the British newspaper Daily Mail.

The match in question was against Bournemouth, on August 11, and ended in a 1-1 draw. According to the Daily Mail, before that, at least two other games in which Paquetá received a yellow card were already being investigated, both from last season : the draw with Aston Villa cited by Sports Radar and the 3-1 victory over Leeds on 21 May.

The FA reportedly received an anti-corruption alert from authorities three days after the Bournemouth game, before informing West Ham and the player, who it did not yet know was the subject of an investigation. On Friday of the same week, the case became public hours before Fernando Diniz’s first call-up to the Brazilian national team and Paquetá was cut. Diniz said that the athlete was cut because of the suspicions.

Manchester City, which was trying to sign the athlete, withdrew from the negotiation. West Ham, in turn, handled the issue differently and kept the midfielder in their squad. England strictly supervises the betting sector and does not allow players and people from the football environment to bet. Recently, Brentford striker Ivan Toney was suspended for eight months from all football-related activity for breaching sports betting rules in the country.