The man who exposed Manchester City's corruption faces "serious consequences" – according to his lawyers

Hacker Rui Pinto, the mastermind behind the Football Leaks website that helped trigger the Premier League's financial investigation into Manchester City, faces serious safety risks after Portuguese authorities revoked his protected witness status, according to his legal representatives.

In a joint statement released Friday, October 2, Pinto's Portuguese lawyers, Francisco and Luisa Teixeira da Mota, along with French representatives William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, announced that their client had been officially informed on Wednesday that his specialized security program, active since August 2020, would end on October 10.

Stressing that threats against the whistleblower remain active, and referring to a physical assault in Lisbon last April and ongoing legal proceedings involving influential figures, his lawyers warned that removing his housing and security status would plunge him into extreme vulnerability.

This 37-year-old self-taught computer expert had been living under witness protection since cooperating with Portuguese authorities following his arrest in Hungary in January 2019 and subsequent extradition.

After spending more than a year in pretrial detention, Pinto gave investigators access to millions of encrypted documents that he had begun publishing in 2015.

This wealth of information, disseminated by a consortium of European media organizations, revealed widespread financial irregularities, tax fraud and dubious practices within elite football clubs, players and agents, thus laying the groundwork for international investigations.

Although a Portuguese court sentenced Pinto to four years in prison with a suspended sentence in September 2023 following convictions for attempted extortion, data access violations and correspondence offenses, his continued cooperation with several European jurisdictions has exposed him to persistent security threats.