Hack-Job - Who is Rui Pinto? Mastermind Hacker Behind Man City Charges Profiled

Who Is Hacker Extraordinaire Whistleblower John, A.K.A. Rui Pinto

For the last seven days, ever since the Premier League commission found Manchester City guilty on all but one of the 115 charges of financial misrepresentation, PSR failure, UEFA FFP non-compliance and a host of other misdeeds, fans' and pundits minds have been spinning with all sorts of questions.

Manchester City could be facing the biggest punishment in English football history. The club have issued a statement after reports emerged that they've been found guilty on 114 of their 115 charges relating to breaches of financial regulations. @RobHarris looks at the latest pic.twitter.com/XiO82uSTLz

— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 25, 2026

However, two have stood out more than any other: How severe should Manchester City’s punishment be? And who is the man to spark this investigation in the first place, the man responsible for the revelation of the biggest footballing fraud case seen this century?

Well, the first question is yet to get an answer, as Manchester City can still appeal the verdict until close of play on Friday, Oct 2nd. But the second question has largely answered itself over the last few days – if you have been active on X, or indeed any other type of social media, at any point over the last week, then I’m fairly sure you’ll know who Rui Pinto is, and how he masterminded the impending downfall of one of the 21st century’s most successful football clubs.

Who is Whistleblower John?

A 37-year-old lifelong Porto fan, Portuguese national Pinto has long been a person of interest to the footballing community, although his true name only became known in 2019, when he was arrested in Budapest on a European warrant.

His arrest had been four years in the making – in 2015, he launched the infamous website Football Leaks, where, through his proficiency in hacking into confidential computer systems, he shared over 70 million documents detailing hoards of illegal activity under the pseudonym of ‘whistleblower John’.

Rui Pinto is 37.

To most football fans, that name means almost nothing.

But years ago, he was sitting behind a computer with access to something football clubs desperately didn't want the public to see.

Around 2015, Pinto created Football Leaks.

What started as a website… pic.twitter.com/Crxqx9oDYR

— (fan) Skye xports premier League (@skyeepl) September 27, 2026

These leaks did not just pertain to Manchester City, with PSG, Benfica and boyhood club FC Porto all implicated in dodgy dealings through his files, but the Manchester club certainly took the brunt of the impact.

The aforementioned European arrest warrant was put out for his part in multiple cyber-crimes, but importantly, he was not brought in for the fact that he leaked evidence of wrongdoing but instead for how he obtained the incriminating data.

While under arrest in the Hungarian capital, Pinto’s alias was publicly linked to his real name, revealing his true identity to the world and to the parties he had exposed, and though initially arrested as a criminal, he was placed under witness protection, as Portuguese courts quickly recognised him as a whistleblower due to the fact that the information he had leaked was classed as “in the public interest”.

European courts consistently emphasise that whistleblowers are allowed to obtain documents illegally, as otherwise that information is never likely to see the light of day, and the subsequent chain allows journalists to share that information, and official governing bodies to legally begin combing through it.

The files he leaked were shared by German news outlet Der Speigel, and that was all it took for football’s governing bodies to get involved. They are not allowed to use the information directly from a source that acquired the information illegally, but as soon as the information is thrust into the public domain by the media, it is considered fair game, and bodies such as UEFA, the Premier League and national tax authorities have the green light to begin investigating the data.

The files published on Football Leaks subsequently went on to form the basis of the Premier League’s investigation into Manchester City, meaning that we all have Pinto to thank for the long-awaited justice coming Shamchester City’s way.

A Man of Many Talents

Pinto has been accused of a myriad of cyber-crimes – illegal access to computer systems, data theft, the violation of secrecy laws, and even attempted extortion (we’ll get to that later). Using these skills for evil, Pinto would be considered an exceptionally dangerous individual, capable of releasing material on any individual to the public simply from a couple of hours of idle computer surfing.

Luckily for the vast majority, it appears that Pinto is more than satisfied with using his hacking talents for good, and plenty of unfortunate entities and individuals have fallen victim to his microscope.

🚨 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: The whistleblower who exposed the Manchester City situation says there is MORE.

The hacker, Rui Pinto, is now in witness protection. He claims he has even more information. pic.twitter.com/vPPqvfomfU

— The Touchline | 𝐓 (@TouchlineX) September 30, 2026

The count of attempted extortion, the charge that eventually led to Pinto being arrested in the first place, came in a separate chain of events now named the “Doyen Sports Case”.

Doyen Sports is a footballing private equity fund run out of Malta and headed by Nelio Lucas. In 2015, Pinto hacked into their system and obtained files detailing third-party ownership schemes, secret clauses in player investment deals, cases where the company put financial pressure on struggling clubs, and influence over club sporting decisions, alongside a handful of other illegal activities.

Pinto obtained this and then, alongside his associate, a lawyer named Anibal Pinto, attempted to extort Lucas for between €500,000 and 1 million – it was this act that sparked the warrant for his arrest and the case that led to his true identity being revealed.

Pinto was slapped with a four-year suspended sentence, one which was later upheld by a Portuguese court – the thing is, had he decided against extorting the company, his theft of data would be viewed as an act of whistleblowing, meaning that Pinto would not have done anything illegal. It remains the only case ever published on Football Leaks that incriminated Pinto in illegal proceedings.

Pinto even ventured outside of the football sphere, leaking information on how Isabel Dos Santos, once Africa’s richest woman, had allegedly syphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from her home nation of Angola’s state resources – he truly is a man of the people.

Named the “Luanda Leaks”, the Portuguese national published over 700,000 files that inculpated her for the diversion of public funds into a host of private companies owned by dos Santos and her husband Sindika Dokolo, the use of shell companies in secrecy jurisdictions, and insider deals granted by her father and long-standing autocratic president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

Thanks to Pinto’s personal investigation into the files, dos Santos has since faced numerous asset freezes, the UK and the US both imposed sanctions on her for corruption, and Angola even put out an international arrest warrant on her head.

Say what you will about Pinto – he works for the greater good.

Where is Pinto Now?

Despite being placed under witness protection in 2020 shortly after his arrest, Pinto saw that status shockingly revoked just days after the verdict on the Man City investigation was made public.

For six years, the hacker had been given access to a safe house, state-provided security and formal protection measures, and yet just days after one of the biggest financial revelations in football history was confirmed to be true, and multiple entities were surely out for blood, Pinto was released back into the world as a free man with no protection measures.

Given his four-year suspended sentence in Portugal and a further six months suspended in France, his witness protection status was already contested by multiple governing bodies, and when Pinto accused current FIFA president Gianni Infantino of knowing about Man City’s financial misconduct back in 2014, just two days ago, that status became too controversial and politically sensitive to continue.

Back in 2014, there was a man who was already aware of the irregularities involving Manchester City. That man now runs FIFA. The infamous Gianni Infantino, then UEFA General Secretary, abused his authority, shared confidential documents and, in short, outmanoeuvred the…

— Rui Pinto (@RuiPinto_FL) September 30, 2026

So now, in a time where his leaks on Manchester City have never been more divisive, Pinto is back in the public domain without protection and at the risk of any Man City fan or governing body who took exception to his actions.

Physically assaulted while under protection back in April, and subject to near constant hostility in relation to the leaks, Pinto is now at large, and although the Portuguese government has described the risk to his life as ‘low’, is likely in more danger now than ever.

On Thursday, he posted on X that he would be publishing a major announcement at 6pm on Friday, the same day that marks the deadline for Manchester City to appeal the Premier League commissions' guilty verdict.

I will make a very important announcement tomorrow at 18:00 UTC.

— Rui Pinto (@RuiPinto_FL) October 1, 2026

That announcement could relate to Barcelona, PSG, Infantino, or even more City files, but considering where we have ended up, it would be unwise for Pinto to poke the bear further.

Though he described his work at Football Leaks as “a project that promised to expose, without filters, the corruption hidden behind the curtain”, everybody has a limit, and even without tonight's promised announcement, Pinto is already pushing thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, to the very limit.

His work is honourable, and the leaks of corruption and fraud are unlikely to stop any time soon, but at some point he must start to focus on his own safety – the job of a whistleblower is to acquire incriminating data at great personal risk, and the more Pinto leaks, the greater the risk on his profession, and possibly his life, becomes.