A conspiracy theory surrounding Lucas Paqueta’s West Ham exit has been thrown into doubt after Flamengo chief Jose Boto revealed that the Brazilian himself was the driving force behind the move — contradicting claims that the Hammers wanted to sell him for financial reasons and blamed his departure on the player’s wishes.

When Lucas Paqueta left West Ham in January, the timing could hardly have been worse for the Hammers. They were fighting for Premier League survival, and the Brazilian was one of their most gifted players.

Some West Ham fans questioned why the club would sanction his departure in the middle of a relegation battle. That, and a deep distrust of the board at the time, led to theories that West Ham’s financial position meant they needed to cash in, but wanted to portray the transfer as Paqueta’s decision to avoid a backlash from already angry fans.

Now Jose Boto, the Flamengo sporting director who personally led negotiations to bring Paqueta back to his boyhood club, has provided a striking account of what really happened behind the scenes.

And his version of events directly challenges that theory.

Flamengo chief says Paqueta drove West Ham exit

Speaking to GiveMeSport journalist Ben Jacobs, Boto explained that negotiations with West Ham lasted two months and were exceptionally difficult.

“Firstly, it was a very tough transfer to negotiate with West Ham,” Boto said.

“It was a negotiation lasting two months – and it was only possible because of the player’s wish to play for Flamengo.”

The Brazilian chief went even further, suggesting the deal would never have happened had Paqueta wanted to join another Premier League club instead.

He added: “If not, I have to tell you, it would have been impossible to reach that price. If the player had wanted to play for another Premier League team, or something like that, for sure we would not have made that deal.”

Those comments are significant because they come from the man on the other side of the negotiating table. Boto had every reason to understand how determined Paqueta was to leave England and return to Brazil.

His account makes it considerably harder to argue that West Ham simply manufactured the narrative of a wantaway player to disguise a financially motivated sale.

West Ham genuinely wanted Paqueta to stay

There was already evidence at the time that West Ham were reluctant to lose the midfielder.

Paqueta, however, felt his time in England had run its course after the lengthy ordeal surrounding the spot-fixing investigation that threatened his career. He had been cleared of the charges, but the experience had taken a significant toll.

His desire to return home was not simply a convenient explanation invented after the transfer. Reports during the January window indicated that he was pushing for the move and was willing to prioritise a return to Brazil over remaining in the Premier League.

That distinction matters. West Ham ultimately agreed a deal worth around £35.5m, but the transfer was shaped by a player who wanted to leave at a time when the club desperately needed his quality.

Boto’s testimony does not reveal every aspect of West Ham’s internal finances or prove that financial considerations played no part in the decision.

But it does provide first-hand evidence that Paqueta’s wishes were central to the transfer and that Flamengo faced a prolonged struggle to get the deal done.

For supporters who believed the Hammers’ board had used the player’s desire to return home as cover for a sale they wanted anyway, that is a significant challenge to their theory.

West Ham fans can still debate whether the club should have fought harder to keep Paqueta until the end of the season. They can question whether his departure contributed to relegation.

But the suggestion that the club simply wanted rid of him to make some money back on the midfielder before relegation – and dressed it up as his decision – is much harder to sustain in light of Boto’s account.