Rui Pinto to lose Portuguese witness protection days after Manchester City guilty verdict
Rui Pinto, the Football Leaks whistleblower, is set to lose his witness protection status in Portugal days after an independent commission found Manchester City guilty of serious breaches of Premier League financial rules, his lawyers said on Friday.
Pinto entered Portugal’s witness protection programme in 2020 after agreeing to cooperate with authorities and handing over files from the Football Leaks operation that helped trigger scrutiny of Manchester City’s finances. The independent commission found City guilty of breaches covering nine seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18 and upheld three of four charges related to failures to cooperate with the inquiry. The Premier League said the club used “sham” commercial contracts to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than 900 million pounds ($1.19 billion) over nearly a decade, leaving the club to deny wrongdoing and lodge an appeal against the verdict.
Pinto’s legal team said the protection measures would be withdrawn without the required prior hearing, and they posted a statement on his X account outlining the immediate consequences. "In a few days, without being heard beforehand, as required by law, he would lose the protected, confidential residence assigned to him and be forced to find new housing urgently, with no guarantee that police protection will continue," the statement said. The lawyers said that loss of the assigned residence would force Pinto to seek housing at short notice with no assurance that police protection would persist.
The legal team described Pinto’s situation as precarious and pointed to a prior physical attack. "His situation is now critical. The threats against him are not merely theoretical; he was assaulted in Lisbon last April," the statement added.
Football Leaks, launched in 2015, published millions of confidential documents from the football industry, including transfer agreements and contracts involving clubs, players and agents. The article noted that Football Leaks data seen by Reuters showed how some prominent figures in soccer avoided tax by channelling earnings offshore. Pinto was arrested in Hungary in 2019, extradited to Portugal and subsequently cooperated with authorities before being placed in witness protection.
Portugal’s Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, the lawyers said. The legal team also reminded that legal proceedings arising from the Football Leaks disclosures remain active, citing the recent Manchester City case among those ongoing matters.
Pinto’s lawyers said the witness protection programme would end on October 10 and argued that removing his protected accommodation now would heighten his vulnerability. "If abruptly deprived of his protected housing and plunged into a state of extreme precariousness, Rui Pinto would be more vulnerable now than at any time since 2020," the statement said.
