{"id":877014,"date":"2026-10-10T03:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/877014\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T03:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:04:12","slug":"manchester-city-whistleblower-rui-pinto-to-remain-under-witness-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/877014\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester City whistleblower Rui Pinto to remain under witness protection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portuguese computer hacker who released documents which helped trigger the Premier League investigation into Manchester City<\/a> will remain in witness protection after authorities in the country suspended the decision to end it. <\/p>\n

Football Leaks founder Rui Pinto had been scheduled to leave the protection programme on Saturday,<\/a> a ruling he previously said had put him in a “life-threatening situation”.<\/p>\n

Pinto, 37, disclosed a tranche of confidential football documents, including emails and financial records relating to the English Premier League side.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he shared documents with German magazine Der Spiegel, which used them for investigations into City’s finances and alleged breaches of financial fair play rules.<\/p>\n

City were recently found guilty of all charges<\/a> relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons. They have appealed against the decision.<\/p>\n

Pinto became part of Portugal’s witness protection programme in 2020 after agreeing to co-operate with authorities and provide information obtained through the Football Leaks operation.<\/p>\n

However, in a statement on Friday,, external<\/a> Portugal’s Ministry of Justice said a decision to remove Pinto from witness protection had been reversed for the time being, with the body responsible for it – the special security programmes commission – having not adequately “notified” Pinto of grounds for its termination or given him the opportunity to challenge the decision. <\/p>\n

Pinto will now be given 10 days to assess a risk assessment conducted by the special security programmes commission that indicates a low threat to his safety. <\/p>\n

He posted on X, external<\/a> thanking Portugal’s Minister of Justice, Rita Alarcao Judice and saying the commission’s initial decision had clearly violated the law and amounted to a “manifest abuse of power”.<\/p>\n

Pinto has described himself as a whistleblower, but was convicted in Portugal of offences including illegal access to data and attempted extortion and given a four-year suspended sentence.<\/p>\n

He wore a bulletproof vest during his first trial in 2020, which was also subject to heightened security measures.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, he was acquitted of 241 counts of illegally accessing email accounts belonging to a number of sports bodies in Portugal, including Benfica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portuguese computer hacker who released documents which helped trigger the Premier League investigation into Manchester City will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-877014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}