Rui Pinto, the Portuguese hacker whose Football Leaks files triggered the investigation that led to Manchester City being found guilty of 114 Premier League financial charges, has lost the protected witness status he has held since 2020. The decision, confirmed this week by Portuguese authorities and reported by The Guardian, strips him of his confidential residence and potential police protection from 10 October, just days after the Premier League delivered its landmark ruling against the Etihad club.
What exactly has changed for Rui Pinto
Portuguese authorities have officially revoked Pinto's protected witness status, with the 37-year-old hacker having originally entered the state protection programme in 2020 after granting police access to millions of confidential files. He has benefited from the special security programme for over six years since August 2020, but is now due to lose his protected, confidential residence and potential police protection on 10 October.
Despite a physical assault in Lisbon last April which left Pinto with a bruised eyebrow, local police have controversially deemed the current threat to his safety as low. Officials have reportedly told him to be cautious with family contacts and to limit his social media use.
Why the timing has raised eyebrows
The withdrawal of protection landed only days after the Premier League delivered its own explosive verdict. Manchester City have been found guilty of 114 charges of financial breaches, including all financial charges and all but one charge relating to lack of cooperation with the investigation. This abrupt withdrawal of security arrives immediately after the Premier League found Manchester City guilty of 114 financial charges, with Pinto's initial data dump, shared with Der Spiegel in 2018, having served as the primary catalyst for the nine-year investigation into the Etihad club's accounting practices.
City themselves have not stood still. The club confirmed that at 7pm on Thursday 1 October it lodged its comprehensive appeal against the opinion of the Premier League Commission, insisting the opinion contains clear material errors of law, principle and fact and is unsafe, and maintaining it is innocent of the accusations. No sanction has yet been set; the commission still has to hold a separate hearing on punishment, with options running from a fine to a heavy points deduction to relegation from the Premier League.
Who is Rui Pinto
Pinto is a Portuguese computer hacker and activist whose work as a public interest whistleblower has exposed corruption that served as grounds for criminal investigations in several countries, having been born and raised in Vila Nova de Gaia, near Porto, with his early work focused on Portuguese football clubs Benfica and FC Porto. Following his arrest, he was extradited to Portugal in March 2019 and remained in pre-trial detention until April 2020, before being given a four-year suspended sentence in September 2023 for illegally obtaining documents, committing other cybercrimes and attempted extortion.
He was later acquitted on 241 separate counts in a second trial in April 2026 after the court ruled the charges were invalid. That mixed legal history — part vindicated whistleblower, part convicted hacker — has shaped how Portuguese authorities and the football world alike have treated him ever since.
Lawyers warn of a «critical» situation
Pinto's legal team moved quickly once notified of the decision. Football Leaks whistleblower Rui Pinto has filed an administrative appeal to prevent the Portuguese government from ending his special protection programme, after notification that his protection is scheduled to terminate on 10 October. Lawyers representing Pinto have stated that the administrative appeal carries a suspensive effect, halting the termination while the challenge is processed.
In a joint statement, his lawyers — Francisco Teixeira da Mota, Luisa Teixeira da Mota, Vincent Brengarth and William Bourdon — set out the stakes starkly. «His situation is now critical. The threats against him are not merely theoretical; he was assaulted in Lisbon last April. His revelations implicated powerful figures with vast resources, and many resulting legal proceedings are still ongoing, as evidenced by the decision handed down just days ago by the Premier League's independent commission regarding Manchester City. 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.»
What happens next
Two separate processes are now running in parallel. On the football side, City's appeal will determine whether the guilty verdict stands before any sanctions hearing is even scheduled — a process that could still end anywhere between a fine and relegation from England's top flight. The story sits alongside other major talking points in English football this season, including the fallout at Everton over Jordan Pickford's situation and England's recent Nations League defeat to Spain at Wembley.
On the legal side in Portugal, Pinto's administrative appeal against the loss of protection is now before the authorities, with his suspensive effect meaning the termination is on hold while the challenge is examined. Whichever way that ruling goes, the man whose leaked files reshaped one of English football's biggest financial scandals finds himself, for now, at the centre of a very different kind of dispute over his own safety.