Rui Pinto is Everyone's Favourite Whistleblower, and His Claims Just Got Even Better

For Hacker to Hero - Rui Pinto Looking to Reshape Football

The story of Manchester City’s financial misgivings and subsequent indignance as being labelled as guilty is the gift that keeps on giving right now. £900 million in falsified finances, sham contracts and a failure to comply with investigators – it is the highest-profile case of football fraud seen this century.

Football has just one man to thank for sparking the investigation – Portuguese hacker-turned-whistleblower Rui Pinto, who was the first man to uncover signs of City’s dishonesty back in 2018.

With City now facing potentially devastating repercussions for their intentional financial misconduct, many believed that Pinto had played his role and would take a position in the shadows behind the scenes.

However, yesterday evening, the 37-year-old made another claim, and it is one that could send the global football pyramid toppling, as it concerns the hugely divisive head of FIFA himself, Gianni Infantino.

A Cancer on Football

Pinto initially entered the public eye under the pseudonym of whistleblower John, an unknown online presence that hacked into the computer system of multiple well-known clubs and acquired and leaked over 70 million confidential documents detailing shady dealings at multiple clubs.

Though his findings were endless, the most concerning leaks included undisclosed payments to managers, agents and players, secret third-party ownership deals, and financial fair play breaches by the likes of Man City and PSG.

Under this pseudonym, Pinto created the website Football Leaks where he published his findings, and it was what he posted here that initially sparked the Premier League’s long investigation into Manchester City, the findings of which were finally published earlier this week.

Naturally, leaking these sensitive and incriminating documents made Pinto an unpopular man in multiple parts of the world and, since 2020, has been under witness protection in Portugal to protect his safety – witness protection that just a few days ago was lifted, a strange decision given its proximity to the verdict on Manchester City’s charges.

However, the sudden lack of protection hasn’t prevented Pinto from coming out and claiming that he has more damning files yet to be released, and on Wednesday evening, the lifelong Porto fan gave us an astonishing indicator of who those files may be about.

His tweet temporarily stopped the entire football world: “Back in 2014, there was a man who was already aware of the irregularities involving Manchester City. That man is now in charge of FIFA.”

“The infamous Gianni Infantino, then UEFA General Secretary, abused his authority, shared confidential documents and, in short, outmanoeuvred the investigatory chamber, doing everything in his power to ensure that both Manchester City and PSG would merely receive a fine, avoiding a deeper investigation that could have led to a Champions League ban. All of these details were also revealed through football leaks.”

🚨 City Whistleblower Rui Pinto Loses Protected Witness Status In Portugal

- Portuguese authorities officially revoke Pinto's protected witness status
- Founder of Football Leaks had been in the state protection programme since 2020
- Police deem the current threat to his safety… pic.twitter.com/pmVUPNSdlQ

— Football Culture (@CultFooty) October 1, 2026

The tweet, which numbered just 125 words, turned the global footballing hierarchy upside down, a real-life BAFTA-winning TV series being written towards our very eyes. Could it be that the man the world had entrusted to care for and develop football in a global sense, labelled as a “cancer on football” by Pinto, has been corrupt since before he was elected president?

Infanti-No

The Italian FIFA president has been in the headlines plenty this year already: he forged a bizarrely friendly relationship with Donald Trump at the World Cup, and briefly became football’s most hated man after proposing that FIFA sell 20% of their shares in the World Cup to private investors, putting the competition's future in jeopardy in the process.

However, his implication in the Manchester City scandal, his reported ignorance of wrongdoing and even his help in covering up evidence indicate a level of corruption many didn’t think possible within the beautiful games’ halls of governance.

The implications are astounding – if a middling top-flight team such as Everton fails FFP by £20 million, apparently it isn’t enough for UEFA to get involved. Instead, they leave it to the club's domestic commission to deal with, which, on that occasion, saw the Toffees fined and deducted 10 points.

However, when a bigger team is involved and is falsifying the income of hundreds of millions, as in the case of Man City, UEFA suddenly feels compelled to get involved, cover up some of the evidence, influence the investigators and, simply put, vouch for them.

Infantino couldn’t have made it more obvious that he wasn’t treating all sides equally - it absolutely wreaks of preferential treatment, and it all comes back to the sole reason Infantino looked to sell off some of the World Cup rights – money.

FIFA refuses to release files on World Cup sell-off plan and accuses UEFA of ‘harrassing’ Gianni Infantino.https://t.co/NNFGkGiKif

— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) September 29, 2026

If UEFA successfully buried Manchester City’s misdeeds, or at least the worst of them, the Cityzens would only receive a slap on the wrist and a manageable fine, barely a sweat for the Abu Dhabi-backed club, and money they would more than make up from competition prize money and TV funds.

Had the leaks been successfully hidden, it would also have been symbiotic - UEFA would have raked in that extra bit of cash from Man City participating in their tournaments rather than a lower-quality replacement side had the Manchester club faced the full consequences of their actions.

If anything, the signs of Infantino’s dishonest, shady, corrupt future as FIFA president were there – the issue is that the files are being revealed 12 years too late.

Many of us have at some point this summer feared that Infantino will be sticking around for the foreseeable future, boasting a cockroach-like ability to stay alive despite the many calling for his head.

But Pinto is the one man that can actually effect change within FIFA. The only person in the world who can bring both Manchester City and Gianni Infantino to heel for their crimes on football, the Portuguese whistleblower is a football hero, and moreover, his views on both parties align with the vast majority of the rest of the world.

“Given his actions as UEFA General Secretary and, more recently, as FIFA president, I can only say, in my humble opinion, that Gianni Infantino has become a cancer on football and should have no place in the future of the game.”

Rui Pinto, if you’re ever in London, I’ll get you a pint.