Rui Pinto’s Football Leaks put football finances under scrutiny

Portuguese computer hacker Rui Pinto became a central figure in football’s financial controversies after creating Football Leaks, a website that published confidential documents involving clubs, players and agents. The material released by Pinto included internal emails concerning sponsorship agreements and payments involving Manchester City, according to the BBC. Those documents later became part of the background to the Premier League’s financial case against the club.

Manchester City has denied the charges and is expected to appeal. Pinto established Football Leaks in 2015, saying its purpose was to expose what he called the hidden side of football. The website initially focused on Portuguese clubs, including Benfica and Pinto’s supported team, FC Porto, before expanding to documents involving players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar.

Portuguese journalist Antonio Varela was the first journalist Pinto contacted. He used the pseudonym “John” while his identity remained unknown. Varela said journalists recognised the material had been obtained illegally but believed its publication could be justified by public interest.

Pinto later shared tens of millions of documents with Rafael Buschmann of the German magazine Der Spiegel. A team in Hamburg examined the material, checking its authenticity and relevance before publication. Data journalist Christoph Winterbach said the journalists used cross-checking and software to assess whether the information was reliable.

Pinto ultimately provided more than three terabytes of information to Der Spiegel and other organisations in the European Investigative Collaborations consortium. Winterbach met him in prison in Lisbon in 2019 while he was awaiting trial and later interviewed him under witness protection. His former geography teacher, Mario Falcao, recalled Pinto as a sociable pupil with strong computer skills.

Falcao said he was surprised when Pinto was identified as Football Leaks’ founder, describing the situation as possibly connected to youthful excess, his support for Porto and a perceived desire for justice. The case has left Pinto viewed by some as a criminal hacker and by others as a whistleblower.