Rui Pinto, the hacker who uncovered the Manchester City controversy, mentions Guardiola

By Admin On Sep 28, 2026

The Portuguese hacker was the one who leaked the millions of confidential documents that led to the historic financial case against the English club.

Rui Pinto, a young Portuguese man with a passion for computers and a former history student, went from being a complete unknown to becoming one of the most controversial and influential figures in world football. In 2015, he created the Football Leaks platform with the aim of acting as a whistleblower to expose operational and accounting irregularities in elite sports.

Behind the pseudonym “John”, he managed to gain unauthorized access to the systems of various clubs, representation agencies and sports bodies in Europe, accumulating millions of files with emails, secret contracts and opaque transfers.

The turning point in the scandal came in 2018, when he leaked a massive amount of documentation to the German magazine Der Spiegel. The revelations detailed alleged maneuvers by Manchester City to circumvent UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, supposedly inflating sponsorship deals from the United Arab Emirates and concealing parallel payments to coaches and players.

These files were the seed that spurred the subsequent formal investigation by the Premier League, which ultimately resulted in 115 charges of financial misconduct against the Manchester club. Pinto’s legal journey has been marked by setbacks and legal battles. In 2019, he was arrested in Budapest and extradited to Portugal, where he faced charges of unauthorized access to data, violation of correspondence, and attempted extortion of an investment fund.

After being sentenced in 2023 to four years in prison on probation, he went on to actively cooperate with French and Portuguese authorities, handing over additional encrypted hard drives and entering a witness protection program after being recently acquitted of hundreds of additional charges.

Today, Rui Pinto’s legacy completely divides public opinion and the football world. For his supporters and anti-corruption platforms, he is a hero of transparency whose leaks forced an audit of the economic power in the beautiful game.

British Culture and Sport Minister Lisa Nandy stressed in Corriere della Sera the need to quickly resolve the case: “We must reach a swift conclusion to restore confidence in football. The Premier League has the right to self-govern, but the rules must be applied and respected by everyone.”

For his part, Rui Pinto, also speaking to the same Italian newspaper, stated: “A historic decision for English football, and one that crowns the work I have done through Football Leaks. Today, we all know that, through structural manipulations and financial maneuvers, Manchester City didn’t simply circumvent the rules, they turned them into a mere formality, defying any attempt to preserve the integrity of the competition. This meticulously orchestrated fraud will finally be punished, and the impact will be not just turbulent, but devastating… I can’t help but recall Pep Guardiola’s words in his first press conference as City manager: ‘Fasten your seatbelts.'”