Rui Pinto may not be a familiar name to many football fans, but the Portuguese computer hacker has played a major role in some of the biggest financial controversies to hit European football.
Pinto is the founder of Football Leaks, a platform that published confidential documents obtained from football clubs, players, agents and other individuals in the sport.
Some of the documents released through Football Leaks later became part of the background to the Premier League’s financial case against Manchester City, which the club has denied and is expected to appeal.
According to the BBC, leaked documents included internal emails relating to sponsorship agreements and payments involving Manchester City.
But Pinto’s story extends far beyond the Premier League champions.
The 37-year-old has spent years at the centre of a debate over whether he should be regarded as a criminal hacker or a whistleblower who exposed what he described as the “hidden side of football”.
From an ordinary childhood to Football Leaks
Pinto grew up in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro River from Porto, in a modest family.
His former geography teacher, Mario Falcao, recalled him as an ordinary and sociable student who had an obvious talent for computers.
“Rui was a perfectly normal pupil. He was nice, with his spiky hair, he was quite sociable but not extrovert,” Falcao said.
“He had a good relationship with the teachers, although he did miss these classes quite often.”
Falcao said Pinto was particularly talented with computers and remembered him as a young man who enjoyed simple activities such as going to the gym and McDonald’s.
Pinto’s father, Francisco, worked in a shoe factory before becoming an antiques dealer, while his mother died when he was 11.
Falcao said he was surprised when Pinto was identified as the person behind Football Leaks in 2019.
“We were very surprised. We weren’t imagining anything like this could happen, that he could have problems with justice,” he said.
How Football Leaks started
Pinto launched Football Leaks in 2015, saying its purpose was to expose what he described as the hidden side of football.
He initially operated anonymously under the name “John” and contacted Portuguese journalist Antonio Varela, who was then working with sports newspaper Record.
Varela recalled receiving an email from Football Leaks containing documents he had never seen before.
“I can’t believe there is lots of information that you never heard or read. We made the conclusion this is very, very important,” he recalled.
The documents raised an important question for journalists: should information obtained illegally be published if it is considered to be in the public interest?
Varela said journalists understood that the information had been obtained unlawfully but believed its public-interest value justified reporting on it.
Football Leaks initially focused on Portuguese clubs, including Benfica and Pinto’s supported club, FC Porto.
The operation later expanded to documents involving some of football’s biggest stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar.
Millions of confidential documents
Pinto eventually established contact with Rafael Buschmann, a journalist with German magazine Der Spiegel.
After developing trust between them, Pinto handed over tens of millions of documents.
A team of journalists in Hamburg examined the material and produced a series of reports that attracted worldwide attention.
Data journalist Christoph Winterbach, who worked on the project, described his first encounter with the documents as fascinating but said the team had to verify their authenticity before publication.
“We always need to make sure that it’s authentic material and whenever we publish something about it, it needs to be in the public interest to start writing,” Winterbach said.
Pinto eventually supplied more than three terabytes of information to Der Spiegel and other media organisations involved in the European Investigative Collaborations consortium.
Winterbach met Pinto in prison in Lisbon in 2019 and later interviewed him again while he was under witness protection at a secret location.
He described Pinto as intelligent, focused and idealistic about the issues he uncovered.
Hacker or whistleblower?
Pinto’s actions have generated sharply contrasting opinions.
Former Portuguese politician and diplomat Ana Gomes testified in his defence and argued that he should be treated as a whistleblower.
“What he has exposed is very important. In Portugal, definitely he is by far the most important whistleblower,” Gomes said.
She argued that Pinto’s information had helped authorities investigate alleged wrongdoing across Europe.
However, retired journalist Jose Carlos Freitas offered a different view, saying many people regarded Pinto as a thief because of the way he obtained the information.
“For some people, he is a kind of hero, a Robin Hood, because he was exposing the dark side of the business of so many clubs,” Freitas said.
Varela gave a more balanced assessment, acknowledging that Pinto obtained the information illegally but arguing that his disclosures gave the public an unusual insight into European football.
“Nowadays, I think I put him in the middle [between whistleblower and criminal hacker],” Varela said.
Arrest, convictions and witness protection
Pinto’s activities eventually led to his arrest in Hungary in 2019 before he was extradited to Portugal.
He spent periods in solitary confinement and under house arrest before entering witness protection.
In 2023, he received a four-year suspended sentence after being convicted in Portugal of attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence.
He later received a six-month suspended prison sentence following a separate trial in France.
His legal battles have continued to attract significant attention, with security measures surrounding some of his court appearances.
Lawyers representing football clubs have strongly criticised the methods used to obtain the information.
Rui Patricio, representing Benfica, described Pinto in court as “no more, no less than a burglar”.
Pinto’s lawyer, Francisco Teixeira da Mota, acknowledged that his client was “not a hero and not a saint” but argued that his actions had produced benefits for society.
The Manchester City connection
Football Leaks eventually became closely associated with the Premier League’s financial case against Manchester City.
The Premier League charged the club in February 2023 over alleged financial rule breaches covering several seasons. Manchester City has denied the allegations.
Pinto has followed developments in the case while under witness protection.
His lawyer said the outcome could be significant for Pinto because it could demonstrate whether the revelations he made had ultimately contributed to wider scrutiny of football’s financial practices.
Former Manchester City financial adviser Stefan Borson said the case could have major consequences for the club if the Premier League’s core allegations were proven.
However, Borson rejected the suggestion that Pinto should be regarded as a freedom fighter, arguing that the methods used to obtain the documents were criminal.
The debate surrounding Pinto therefore remains divided.
For some, the focus is on the unlawful methods he used to obtain confidential information. For others, the greater issue is what those documents revealed about the business and financial practices of European football.
What is not in dispute is the impact of Football Leaks.
From a computer in Budapest, Pinto became a central figure in a worldwide story that brought confidential football documents into the public domain and helped fuel some of the biggest financial controversies in modern football.