OFF THE SPOT
It’s taken almost two years but the good news is that if you bet on Lucas Paquetá to be cleared of those gambling charges you can finally go and collect. And if the 12 that signifies a hurricane is the highest measure on the Beaufort scale, you can almost certainly bet your bottom dollar that the West Ham midfielder’s sigh of relief upon discovering he had been cleared of spot-fixing accusations registered in the very high teens. Had Paquetá been found guilty of charges he deliberately got booked on multiple occasions so that assorted folk back home in Brazil could make the staggeringly insignificant sums reported to have been involved in this alleged global conspiracy, he was staring straight down the barrel of a lifetime ban from football.
