Sports
Rui Pinto's Football Leaks disclosures preceded Manchester City's financial-rules conviction
September 26, 2026 at 05:31 PM
Coverage
2 reports · 1 in Arabic, 1 in English · over 6 hours
Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto published confidential club documents via Football Leaks that led to Manchester City's conviction on Premier League charges.
- Pinto founded Football Leaks in 2015 and supplied over three terabytes of data to Der Spiegel and European media partners.
- Manchester City was found guilty Friday of 114 of 115 Premier League financial rules violations committed between 2009 and 2018.
- Pinto, arrested in Hungary in 2019 and extradited to Portugal, received a four-year suspended sentence in 2023 and a six-month sentence in France.
- Former Portuguese politician and diplomat Ana Gomes said Pinto should be protected as a whistleblower rather than prosecuted.