So if I tell my next opponent that I will be playing without a goalie and put him as an attacker for our next match, but then I don't do this (or I forget), am I then a cheater or a liar? I'm not defending this jerk who's clearly a moralless soab, but he didn't cheat. Cheating is if you break the set rules of the game, like playing several teams or somehow increasing the stats of your players by altering the gamecode.
Your example is not appropiate. Nobody pact about formation, we are speaking about mots. In WCL mots should disappear, them should be like in NT matches where nobody is surprised about no mots.
Nobody have enought mots to play to everyone who doesn't want to pact (or to all the small countries who don't need mots in league neither cup). So, pacting mots is necessary. You can understand it, but be sure you will understand it better when you face this problem.
In WCL should be the best teams, no the teams who don't need mots because their league and cup is so weak. If I play WCL I want to play againist the strongest teams in the game. And, the winner of WCL should be the strongest team, no the team who can save his mots until the final while the opponent can't keep at least one.
Cheating is also say that a player is 5/15/8 when the player is 5/7/2. And like all in real life, there are written rules and non written rules. The no mots pact is a non written rule, that means who break it is cheating.
Like you think, increasing player stats altering game coding should not be cheating, because it's not written on rules ... but you said it's a cheat.
But, for the health of the game and for the wellness of all honest people this persons should be punished (I'm not saying a ban). Unfortunely, all here know that Admin. will not make anything with this kind of acts so they will do again ...