Football Leaks' Rui Pinto to lose witness protection — SkimNews
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- Rui Pinto, the founder of Football Leaks, will be terminated from Portugal's witness protection programme on 10 October, which he says puts him in a 'life-threatening situation' and forces him to relocate to an undisclosed location.
- Pinto shared confidential football documents with German magazine Der Spiegel in 2018, which used them to investigate Manchester City's finances and alleged breaches of Premier League financial fair play rules.
- Pinto entered witness protection in 2020 after agreeing to cooperate with Portuguese authorities and provide files from the Football Leaks operation.
- Pinto was convicted in Portugal of offences including illegal access to data and attempted extortion and given a four-year suspended sentence; earlier this year, he was acquitted in a second trial of 241 counts of illegally accessing email accounts belonging to Portuguese sports bodies including Benfica.
- Pinto's lawyers said the termination left him at heightened risk because legal proceedings stemming from the leaks remain ongoing, including the case against Manchester City, which was found guilty of all charges of breaching Premier League financial regulations between 2009-10 and 2017-18 and has appealed.
- On Wednesday, Pinto called Fifa president Gianni Infantino 'a cancer on football,' repeating 2018 allegations that Infantino intervened to help Manchester City and Paris St-Germain avoid UEFA financial fair play sanctions.
- Pinto has launched a fundraising page to help him 'survive this serious situation,' which he claims was 'created by the Portuguese State.'
Why it matters: Pinto's lawyers argue the protection termination is premature because legal proceedings stemming from his leaks — including Manchester City's ongoing case — remain unresolved, and City was found guilty of all financial regulation charges across nine seasons and has appealed. The cooperating witness behind the evidence that triggered the Premier League's largest-ever case against a club is now crowdfunding to fund his own relocation after the Portuguese Commission for the Protection of Victims of Crimes declined to continue shielding him.
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