Wolves forward Matheus Cunha is facing a criminal trial over an alleged paperwork blunder after a late-night speeding incident in London involving his £174,000 rented SUV.
The 24-year-old Brazilian was written to by the Metropolitan Police after the Mercedes G-Class he has on a year-long lease was caught speeding on Finchley Road.
Cunha is accused of failing to respond to the police letter for four months, and he now faces a criminal trial over an alleged failure to provide information about the speeding incident.
According to court papers, the SUV was clocked at 29mph on the 20mph-limited London road at around 2.50am on July 21 last year.
The Premier League footballer, who signed for Wolves in January last year and struck a hat-trick last month in a 4-2 win over Chelsea, says he did eventually reply to the police, offering the name of another person who he says was driving the car.
But he faces a trial on April 5 at Willesden magistrates court, accused of committing a criminal offence by not replying sooner to the police request for information.
The case is expected to be heard in open court, but started in the Single Justice Procedure, a closed-door justice process based entirely on written evidence.
Documents obtained by The Standard show a car hire company was first written to by the Met Police, and it promptly named Cunha as the person who had rented the luxury vehicle.
A letter to Cunha’s home in Wolverhampton gave him 28 days to respond by a deadline of September 13. A “final reminder” was then sent out, giving Cunha an extra week to reply.
It is alleged he missed both deadlines.
The footballer, who has made 11 appearances for Brazil, entered a not guilty plea in January, and told the court that he “did provide details of who was driving, sent on the 4th December 2023”.
He said one of the football club’s officials could be a witness at the trial, as she had been responsible for providing the other driver’s name to police in December.
