What's Happened to the Whisteblower Who Revealed Man City's Cheating

· GiveMeSport

Fresh details about his life have now come to light after City were found guilty on 114 of 115 charges.

Amid a legal battle which has gone on for the past few years, Manchester City have reportedly been found guilty on 114 of the 115 financial charges brought against them by the Premier League.

City have denied all wrongdoing throughout the process but have not done enough to prove their innocence. A punishment decision has not yet been reached, but a heavy points deduction, large fines or expulsion from the Premier League have all been mooted.

Rui Pinto has played a pivotal role in the charges against Man City. In 2018, German newspaper Der Spiegel published bombshell allegations via Football Leaks that City had been breaking financial rules.

Pinto, the man behind the Football Leaks website, had previously published millions of other documents, including details of Lionel Messi’s and Neymar’s contracts and plans for a European Super League. He obtained these documents from Doyen Sports.

Pinto's findings prompted an investigation into City and has now seen them land in very hot water.

In 2019, just a few months after the bombshell claims that City had broken financial rules, Pinto was arrested in Hungary and extradited to his homeland, Portugal, to face 147 charges. According to the Telegraph, these included computer fraud, attempted extortion and violating privacy of correspondence.

In his defence, Pinto described himself as a 'whistleblower' who was doing his best to expose 'what was wrong' in football.

In September 2023, over four-and-a-half years after he was charged, Pinto was convicted on five counts of 'illegitimate access' to IT systems, three counts of 'correspondence violations' and attempted extortion against Doyen Sports.

He received a four-year suspended jail sentence and has since been living under police witness protection at an undisclosed location. Now 37, his lawyer, William Bourdon, has claimed that he has received death threats.

Pinto took to social media to give his thoughts after Man City were found guilty. He said: “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.”

In another post, he said: "Apparently, some English clubs have sought legal advice on whether they may have a claim for compensation, and they have every right to do so.

> "The integrity of the competitions in which Manchester City participated has been seriously compromised ever since these financial schemes began. We are not talking about something isolated or insignificant, but about fraud on a massive, even colossal, scale that went on for several years."

Bourdon has previously said that football should be grateful to Pinto. He told the BBC: "Football should be grateful to him. Tax administrations should be grateful to him. I hope that one day someone will shake the hand of Pinto and say: ‘Thanks to you, you did a tremendous job, and you will deserve a reward for what you did'."

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