The reported finding that Manchester City breached almost all of the 115 Premier League financial rules brought the long-running Football Leaks saga back into the spotlight — and once again drew attention to Rui Pinto, the Portuguese computer enthusiast whose disclosures helped trigger investigations into the club’s finances.
Pinto launched Football Leaks in 2015, operating under the pseudonym “John”. The self-taught computer enthusiast and former history student obtained and shared millions of confidential documents involving football clubs, players, agents and governing bodies. The material included contracts, internal emails and financial information concerning some of the biggest names in the sport.
Pinto has described himself as a whistleblower, although he has also faced criminal proceedings over the methods he used to obtain information. He was arrested in Hungary in 2019 and extradited to Portugal. In 2023, he was convicted of crimes including illegal access to IT systems and attempted extortion and received a suspended prison sentence. He has since cooperated with authorities and remains under police protection.
His Football Leaks archive became a major source for investigative journalists. German magazine Der Spiegel used documents supplied by Pinto in a series of reports published from November 2018, including material concerning Manchester City’s sponsorship arrangements with companies such as Etihad and Etisalat. The revelations prompted UEFA to investigate the club’s financial affairs.
UEFA subsequently found City guilty of overstating sponsorship revenue and failing to cooperate with its investigation, imposing a two-season European competition ban in February 2020. The Court of Arbitration for Sport later overturned the ban, ruling that UEFA had not established that City had disguised equity funding as sponsorship contributions, while upholding a finding that the club had failed to cooperate with the investigation.
Pinto himself was not charged over the Manchester City material specifically. His Portuguese criminal cases concerned access to information belonging to Portuguese football clubs and other organisations.
In April 2026, Pinto was acquitted of 241 charges in a separate Portuguese case after a court ruled that the charges were invalid because they related to matters for which he had already been tried.
The latest Manchester City development is separate from those earlier UEFA proceedings. Reports on September 25 said an independent Premier League panel had found City guilty of 114 of the 115 alleged breaches. However, the Premier League has not publicly confirmed the findings, while City said its case remains ongoing and that significant elements of the process are still to be completed. The club is expected to appeal, and no sanctions have yet been decided.
For Pinto, the development represents the latest chapter in a saga that began with millions of leaked documents and has since reshaped scrutiny of financial regulation in European football.