Rui Pinto, the man behind Football Leaks whose disclosure of private documents helped trigger the Premier League’s investigation into Manchester City’s financial affairs, will no longer be a protected witness under the Portuguese authorities. The decision to remove his protection was taken on Wednesday, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
Pinto, 37, has been advised to “exercise caution with family contacts” and to avoid social media. He had held protected witness status since 2020, after agreeing to give Portuguese authorities access to millions of files he had gathered prior to his arrest.
Portuguese police have judged the risk to Pinto’s safety to be low, despite an assault on him in Lisbon in April and the continuing fallout from the City investigation. It is understood that Pinto was left with a bruised eyebrow after the incident, and that the police were informed, although no complaint was filed.
Pinto was handed a suspended four-year sentence in September 2023 after being found guilty on counts of attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence. Even so, he has been hailed as a hero by some supporters for exposing millions of confidential documents connected to some of the biggest clubs, players and organisations in world football.
Among that material was information concerning City’s finances, which was passed to the German publication Der Spiegel and its partners in the European Investigative Collaborations network. It led to Uefa and the Premier League opening separate investigations. City would eventually overturn their Champions League ban through the court of arbitration for sport, but on Tuesday they were found guilty of 114 charges spanning nine seasons by the Premier League, having been accused of disguising over £900m in funding through sham commercial contracts and false accounting. The deadline for City to appeal is Friday.
Pinto has been heavily active on social media since reports of City’s guilt emerged last week. He described the outcome as a “historic decision for English football” and took aim at City’s executives in another post, saying they had “acted with complete impunity, challenging everyone and everything”. He added: “From the very beginning, they have demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the rules, for the bodies responsible for overseeing and regulating the game, for the integrity of the competition, for the other clubs and, above all, for the fans. Years and years of cheating, lying and manipulation will finally have consequences.”
Hours before confirmation that he would no longer be a protected witness emerged, Pinto also accused the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, of having done “everything in his power” to ensure that City and Paris Saint-Germain would only be fined for contravening Uefa’s FFP rules when he was general secretary at European football’s governing body.