Manchester City whistleblower Rui Pinto no longer a protected witness in Portugal

Rui Pinto, whose leaks of private documents helped to trigger the Premier League’s investigation into Manchester City’s financial affairs, will no longer be protected as a witness by the Portuguese authorities, it can be revealed. The removal of the whistleblower’s protection was decided on Wednesday, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Pinto has also been advised to “exercise caution with family contacts” and avoid social media. The 37-year-old, who is the man behind the website Football Leaks, has been a protected witness since 2020, after agreeing to grant Portuguese authorities access to millions of files gathered before his arrest.

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The Portuguese police have deemed the risk to Pinto’s safety to be low, despite an assault on him in Lisbon in April and the ongoing fallout from the City investigation. It is understood that Pinto was left with a bruised eyebrow after the incident and the police were informed, although no complaint was filed.

Pinto was handed a suspended four-year sentence in September 2023 after being found guilty on counts of attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence. But he has been hailed as a hero by some supporters for exposing millions of confidential documents linked to some of the biggest clubs, players and organisations in world football. That included providing information concerning City’s finances, which was passed to the German publication Der Spiegel and its partners in the European Investigative Collaborations network and led to Uefa and the Premier League opening separate investigations.

While City eventually overturned their Champions League ban via the court of arbitration for sport, they were found guilty of 114 charges spanning nine seasons by the Premier League on Tuesday having been accused of disguising over £900m in funding through sham commercial contracts and false accounting. The deadline for City to appeal is on Friday.

Pinto has been heavily active on social media since reports that City had been found guilty emerged last week. He described it as a “historic decision for English football” and took aim at City’s executives in another post, who he said had “acted with complete impunity, challenging everyone and everything”, saying: “From the very beginning, they have demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the rules, for the bodies responsible for overseeing and regulating the game, for the integrity of the competition, for the other clubs and, above all, for the fans. Years and years of cheating, lying and manipulation will finally have consequences.”

Hours before confirmation that he will no longer be a protected witness emerged, Pinto also accused the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, of having done “everything in his power” to ensure that City and Paris Saint-Germain would only be fined for contravening Uefa’s FFP rules when he was general secretary at European football’s governing body.