Story of Rui Pinto, Hacker Who Exposed Manchester City & Football Secrets
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Rui Pinto is the Portuguese man whose Football Leaks revelations exposed millions of confidential football documents and brought some of the sport’s biggest clubs, players and agents under scrutiny.
Pinto’s activities also played a role in the investigations surrounding Manchester City after leaked documents included internal emails and information about the club’s sponsorship arrangements and payments.
Now, following reports that an independent commission found Manchester City guilty of 114 of 115 alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, Pinto has once again found himself at the centre of the story.
The club has denied wrongdoing and is expected to appeal. The Premier League process also remains ongoing, with sanctions yet to be decided.
But who exactly is Rui Pinto, and how did a Portuguese history student and antiques dealer become one of the most controversial figures in world football?
Who is Rui Pinto?
Pinto grew up in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro River from Porto, Portugal. His former geography teacher, Mario Falcao, remembers him as a sociable but quiet student with a strong interest in computers.
“Rui was a perfectly normal pupil. He was nice, with his spiky hair, he was quite sociable but not extrovert,” Falcao said.
He added that Pinto was particularly good with computers and produced good work when he applied himself.
Pinto had a modest upbringing. His father, Francisco, worked in a shoe factory before becoming an antiques dealer, while his mother died when he was 11.
He later pursued a degree in history but did not complete his studies before moving to Budapest, Hungary, where he worked as an antiques dealer.
How Football Leaks Started
In 2015, Pinto created Football Leaks, initially using the pseudonym “John”. The website published confidential documents relating to football clubs, players, agents and financial arrangements.
Antonio Varela, a Portuguese journalist who was among the first people contacted by Pinto, remembers being shocked by the information he received.
“It was strange. Then I immediately go to the site, and I can’t believe there is lots of information that you never heard or read,” Varela recalled.”We made the conclusion this is very, very important.”he added.
Football Leaks initially focused on Portuguese football, including Benfica and Pinto’s supported club, FC Porto.
It later expanded to cover some of the biggest names in the sport, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar.
Pinto eventually shared huge amounts of material with journalists at German magazine Der Spiegel and the European Investigative Collaborations network. By the end of 2018, he had supplied more than 70 million documents.
The Revelations that Shook Football
The leaked material covered almost every part of the football business. Some stories involved unusual clauses in players’ contracts, while others focused on transfers, taxation, sponsorship arrangements and financial regulations.
Football Leaks also published material concerning Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho and Mesut Ozil, as well as investigations involving Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
Der Spiegel data journalist Christoph Winterbach was part of the team that examined the documents.
“If you’re a football fan, if you’re a sports journalist, it was amazing to see the actual documents, to see those emails where things are negotiated and to get a real look behind the curtain, how things work,” Winterbach said.
However, he stressed that the journalists had to authenticate the documents and cross-check the information before publishing.
Winterbach later described Pinto as “one of the most important whistleblowers that we have in Europe or maybe the world.”
How Pinto Became Linked to Manchester City
Manchester City was among the clubs affected by the Football Leaks revelations. The leaked material included internal emails and financial information relating to the club’s sponsorship arrangements.
Journalists examined the documents, which later became part of wider scrutiny of Manchester City’s finances. In 2020, UEFA subsequently banned Manchester City from European competitions for two years after finding that the club had breached its Financial Fair Play rules.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport later overturned the ban and reduced the fine imposed on the club. The Premier League then launched its own investigation.
In February 2023, the league referred City to an independent commission over 115 alleged breaches spanning several seasons.
The allegations included breaches relating to financial information, payments to players and managers, UEFA regulations, profitability and sustainability rules, and cooperation with the Premier League’s investigation.
Manchester City Found Guilty of 114 Charges
On September 25, 2026, reports emerged that an independent commission had found Manchester City guilty of 114 of the 115 alleged breaches.
The sanctions had not yet been decided, and City is expected to appeal. Manchester City has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Following the reports, a club spokesperson said,”The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality.”
The club added that its position remained consistent with its February 2023 statement and said it had respected due process. The findings therefore do not mark the end of the case, with the next stages expected to include consideration of sanctions and an appeal.
Photo of Manchester City -Etihad Stadium
PHOTO/File
Pinto Reacts to City’s Verdict
The development prompted Pinto to speak publicly about the case. In a post on X on September 25, Pinto described the reported decision as a “historic decision for English football” and linked it directly to his Football Leaks work.
“A historic decision for English football, and one that comes to crown the work I carried out through Football Leaks. Today, we all know that, through structural manipulation and financial manoeuvring, Manchester City did not merely circumvent the rules, they turned them into a mere formality, challenging any attempt to preserve the integrity of the competition. That meticulously orchestrated fraud will finally be subject to punishment, and the impact will not merely be turbulent, but truly devastating for the Cityzens.”
Ironically, I cannot help but remember Pep Guardiola’s words at his first press conference as City manager: ‘Fasten your seat belts’.”
Pinto’s description of City’s conduct is his own characterization of the case. Manchester City has denied the allegations and is expected to appeal the commission’s findings.
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Pinto’s Controversial Legal Battles
While Pinto’s supporters regard him as a whistleblower, his methods have also resulted in criminal convictions. He was arrested in Hungary in 2019 and extradited to Portugal. His first major trial began in 2020 and lasted three years.
In September 2023, a Portuguese court found him guilty of five counts of illegally accessing IT systems, three counts of violating correspondence, and attempting to extort Doyen Sports Investments.
He received a four-year suspended sentence. Pinto has maintained that his actions were carried out in the public interest and has denied the attempted extortion allegation.
The court, however, rejected the argument that freedom of information justified violations of privacy.
“The freedom to inform does not justify violations of privacy,” Judge Margarida Alves said during his sentencing.
Photo collage of Rui Pinto leaving courtroom in Metropolitan Court in Budapest on March 5 ,2019
PHOTO/AFP
Why Some People Defend Pinto
Former Portuguese politician and diplomat Ana Gomes has been one of Pinto’s strongest supporters. She believes the information he exposed was important enough for authorities to treat him as a whistleblower rather than simply a criminal.
“What he has exposed is very important. In Portugal, definitely he is by far the most important whistleblower,” Gomes said.
She argued that Pinto had helped authorities investigate corruption and criminal activity in several European countries.
Winterbach has also defended Pinto’s role, describing him as highly intelligent and idealistic about the issues he exposed.
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Why Others Call Him a Criminal
Pinto’s critics focus on how he obtained the information. Portuguese journalist Jose Carlos Freitas said many people see him as a thief rather than a whistleblower.
“For some people, he is a kind of hero, a Robin Hood, you can say because he was exposing the dark side of the business of so many clubs, but unfortunately for the majority of the people, he is not a good person,” Freitas said.
Varela takes a more mixed position.
“I put him in the middle [between whistleblower and criminal hacker] because he got the information illegally,” he said.
“But he gave us, all of us, a view, a dark view of European football, so he did a job to the society illegally.”
Football Leaks Went Beyond Football
Pinto’s activities were not limited to football. His supporters also point to Luanda Leaks, a major release of documents concerning the financial dealings of Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos.
For Gomes, the episode showed that Pinto’s activities were not simply driven by football rivalries.
“It showed people that it wasn’t just about football-that this wasn’t motivated by rivalries between fans,” she said.
Pinto has also continued to cooperate with investigators. In January 2024, he met French, German and Belgian investigators in Paris and gave them access to hard drives that had been confiscated following his arrest.
“I am sure that there are still many things that have not been investigated,” he later told AFP.
“The data is in good hands.”
Pinto’s Second Trial Ended in Acquittal
In January 2025, Pinto faced another major trial involving 241 charges. The case mainly concerned private information published on a blog known as Mercado Benfica between 2016 and 2019.
Pinto denied authoring the blog. In April 2025, the court acquitted him of all charges in the case.
The outcome came after years during which authorities kept Pinto under strict security arrangements. At different times, he spent periods in custody, under house arrest and in witness protection.
A Controversial Figure Who Remains in the Spotlight
Pinto’s story has created two sharply different views of the same man. His supporters see him as someone who exposed information that powerful football organisations would rather have kept private.
His critics point to his illegal access to private systems and the criminal convictions that followed. However, no one disputes the scale of the information he released or the impact it had on European football.
Pinto continues to follow football closely and regularly posts about FC Porto on social media. His latest comments also show that he continues to follow Manchester City’s long-running financial case.
After his 2023 sentencing, Pinto wrote,”It’s the end of a chapter. The fight will continue.”
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Photo of Rui Pinto with his lawyer William Bourdon in 2023 during his trials
PHOTO/Guardian