Manchester City find themselves at the center of the biggest drama in Premier League history, with potential relegation or expulsion from the division they currently lead after being found guilty of nearly all 115 charges against them.
But this had a low stumbling block.
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Rui Pinto is the Portuguese hacker who blew the whistle on the city’s financial fraud, prompting an entire investigation into the Premier League.
Through his website Football Leakpublished secret documents that govern the city’s broken league over a period of nine seasons in 2018. German newspaper A mirror‘s Subsequent investigative reports reported that the allegations against the State were based on these documents.
Pinto was on other legal matters at the time the city took the allegations of world football by force. After the man was put out Football Leakin Lusitania against 147 charges that included computer fraud, he tried to violate the records and secret correspondence in Portugal, he published many stories about players and clubs other than those of Porto and Benfica. Extraordinary from Hungary, where he lived, in March 2019.
He described himself as a “whistleblower” and denied wrongdoing, saying he was trying to explain “that football was bad”. He spent more than a year in custody before going on house arrest before a criminal trial in Lisbon. In September 2023, he received a four-year suspended prison sentence and lived under police witness protection in an undisclosed location.
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In an emphatic statement in the case of the city, Pinto said: “The proposal released today by the Supreme Alliance finally confirms, without ambiguity, the truth of all the things that have been revealed through it. Football Leak. “It’s a victory eight years in the making, 37 years in the making.
Portuguese whistleblower and author of Targeted Leaks, Rui Pinto (AFP/Getty)
But the news was followed by a hammer blow on Pinto. Less than 24 hours after the independent commission of the official fault of the State, Pinto found out that he will lose his certificate of protection on Saturday, October 10. He is forced out of his secret residence and must find a new home; an event described as an “act of state terrorism”.
“The situation is critical for them now,” said the joint statement of the French sports and legal team from his team. “The threats against him are not purely speculative, but he was attacked in Lisbon last April.
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“Its disclosure has involved powerful figures with large resources, and many legal actions are ongoing as a result, as evidenced by the decision recently handed down by the Independent Commission of the Premier League against Manchester City.”
“Uprooted from his safe haven and plunged into extreme instability, Rui Pinto is now more vulnerable than ever after 2020.”
Pinto now has the world waiting on tenterhooks for the event after he revealed he will make “big news” at 7pm BST on Friday.