Man City whistleblower Rui Pinto loses witness protection days after guilty verdict

Rui Pinto, the man whose Football Leaks website set the Manchester City financial scandal in motion, has been stripped of his witness protection by Portuguese authorities — a development his legal team has described as “an act of state terrorism” — coming less than 24 hours after the Premier League’s independent commission found City guilty of nearly all 115 charges levied against them.

Pinto, a 37-year-old Portuguese hacker, launched Football Leaks as a platform for publishing confidential football documents. In 2018, he released material showing City had broken Premier League financial rules across a nine-season period. German newspaper Der Spiegel used those documents as the basis for an investigative report that brought the allegations into the global spotlight and ultimately prompted the Premier League’s full investigation — the largest in the division’s history.

His path since has been turbulent. After being unmasked as the figure behind Football Leaks, Pinto faced 147 charges in Portugal — including computer fraud, attempted extortion, and violating privacy of correspondence — relating to stories he published about clubs including Porto and Benfica. Extradited from Hungary in March 2019, he spent more than a year in custody before being placed under house arrest ahead of a criminal trial in Lisbon. In September 2023, he received a four-year suspended jail sentence and was placed under police witness protection at an undisclosed location.

On learning of the City verdict, Pinto was unequivocal. “The statement released today by the Premier League ultimately confirms, unequivocally, the truth of everything that was revealed through Football Leaks,” he said — a vindication he had pursued for eight years.

The relief was short-lived. Pinto was informed that his witness protection would end on Saturday 10 October, forcing him out of his confidential residence and leaving him to find new housing at short notice.

“His situation is now critical,” said a joint statement from his Portuguese and French legal teams. “The threats against him are not merely theoretical; he was assaulted in Lisbon last April. His revelations implicated powerful figures with vast resources, and many resulting legal proceedings are still ongoing.”

The timing has drawn sharp criticism, with the withdrawal of protection coming precisely as City’s conviction — and by extension Pinto’s original disclosures — returned to the centre of global attention. Manchester City, meanwhile, face the prospect of relegation or expulsion from a Premier League they currently lead, as the commission determines the appropriate sanctions for its findings.