Lucas Paquet\u00e1 has described the professional and psychological fallout after a proposed \u00a385 million move to Manchester City fell through and a subsequent two-year investigation into alleged intentional yellow cards.<\/p>\n
The West Ham United midfielder said the transfer was effectively ended when charges arrived and Pep Guardiola\u2019s side walked away from a deal said to be worth \u00a385 million ($111.8 million). The Brazil international, 28, faced a potential lifetime ban after being formally charged a year after an investigation began in August of that year.<\/p>\n
After a hearing Paquet\u00e1 was cleared of all gambling charges in July 2025, a conclusion that ended what he called an “ugly two-year saga.” He told Globo Esporte that the timing of the allegations destroyed the immediate move to City. “Everyone knows that I really had a transfer to City,” he told Globo Esporte . “I probably would have signed the week I received the letter [with the charges].”<\/p>\n
Paquet\u00e1 said the biggest impact was psychological and that he sought professional help. “Professionally speaking, I lost that, that transfer , a leap in my career. Psychologically, I think that\u2019s where I was most affected, by the fear of this indecision, the uncertainty of my future, despite knowing who I am, what I do, what I\u2019ve done. But, due to the circumstances of the investigations and the way the federation handled everything, it generated fear in us.<\/p>\n
“Psychologically, it was difficult for me; I had psychological support to deal with all of this, with some of the problems. But, as I said, understanding the reason for everything, that it was God\u2019s work, being able to share a little of my encounter with Him, being a testimony of faith and resilience, I think that\u2019s what I take away from it, that was my victory.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m happy, much lighter. That fear is behind me. What they said would be three months lasted two years, and I was able to prove my innocence, win this case, and be able to do what I love normally.”<\/p>\n
He has also made clear he will not simply walk away. It emerged in September that, according to The Guardian, he was considering suing the Football Association to recover legal costs rather than the earnings he would have had at City. “There\u2019s a lot more I want to talk about, in more detail,” Paquet\u00e1 vowed. “But that will be at another time, and people will be able to see the magnitude of what happened, the biggest betting scandal in the history of English football, the details of what I went through, not what has been reported, because a lot of what has been said isn\u2019t true. I will clarify everything.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m preparing myself, putting together a way to tell this story better, with more details, so that it\u2019s clearer and people can understand the magnitude and gravity of what happened. And, obviously, to tell my side of the story in detail: the trial, meetings, interviews with the Federation, all sorts of details that they sometimes presented in a negative way, but which weren\u2019t true.”<\/p>\n
Asked whether he was delaying revealing all the details for either legal or personal reasons, Paquet\u00e1 simply concluded: “Both.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paquet\u00e1 says collapsed \u00a385m Manchester City transfer and two-year investigation took a heavy toll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1163,438],"tags":[1033,1215],"class_list":["post-4486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transfers","category-west-ham-united","tag-brazilian-football","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}