Matt Le Tissier, Wayne Shaw and other past examples of football betting scandals
Lucas Paqueta has been charged by the Football Association with spot-fixing by deliberately getting carded during four Premier League matches.
West Ham United’s Brazil international faces a lengthy ban if found guilty of charges he has denied “in their entirety”.
Here, Telegraph Sport chronicles other notable spot-fixing scandals and accusations in English football:
September 2009
Matt Le Tissier revealed in his autobiography how he desperately tried to put the ball out of play during Southampton’s 2-0 Premier League win at Wimbledon in April 1995 after betting on the time of the first throw-in. Le Tissier, who stood to win “well into four figures” on the wager, sought to overhit a pass to unsuspecting team-mate Neil Shipperley after kicking off but under-hit it due to nerves.
Le Tissier said he had “never run so much” to put a ball out of play and it eventually left the field after 70 seconds, meaning he and his associates neither won nor lost money. Hampshire Police launched an investigation and referred the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service but it was ruled that the case “did not represent appropriate use of police resources” and “would not be in the public interest”.
July 2012
Le Tissier’s former Southampton team-mate Claus Lundekvam claimed that he, team-mates and opposing captains were involved in betting fraud.
He told Norwegian TV station NRK: “It’s not something I’m proud of. For a while, we did this almost every week. We made a fair bit of money. We could make deals with the opposing captain about, for example, betting on the first throw, the first corner, who started with the ball, a yellow card or a penalty. Those were the sorts of things we had influence over.”
Fifa looked into the claims amid denials by other Southampton players.
September 2017
Former Sutton United goalkeeper Wayne Shaw was fined £375 and banned for two months for eating a pie during their FA Cup defeat to Arsenal. That was after a bookmaker offered odds of 8-1 that he would do so on camera. It was alleged he intentionally influenced a football betting market.
The charge, which he denied, was found proven after an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing.
April 2018
Bradley Wood was banned for six years after twice getting himself booked deliberately during Lincoln City’s fairy-tale FA Cup run the previous season. The defender, who denied the charges, was punished after telling friends he would try to get yellow carded in the victories over Ipswich Town and Burnley. The Football Association said seven people, including two close friends, bet on him to be booked. The potential winnings totalled around £10,000 but were not all paid out.
January 2022
The Football Association confirmed it was examining a yellow card shown to an Arsenal player in a Premier League game after concerns that it could be linked to suspicious betting activity. The FA was alerted by bookmakers to unusual amounts of money being placed on a Gunners player receiving a yellow card in a match earlier this season. The player was not named and no formal investigation into the matter was opened at the time.
