October 4, 2026
Portuguese Rui Pinto, founder of the “Football Leaks” platform, expressed serious fears for his life after the Portuguese authorities decided to end his benefit from the witness protection program, which guaranteed him secret housing and tight security.
Pinto, 37 years old, explained on the “X” platform that the concerned committee informed him of the decision to lift protection, despite receiving repeated death threats and his real fears of being assassinated, stressing that he will intend to leave his current location within days for an unknown destination, without specifying a date for his return.
For its part, Pinto’s legal team expressed its strong objection to the decision, calling on the authorities to reconsider it, especially since a large number of cases related to the documents he revealed are still being discussed before the European judiciary.
These issues are at the forefront of the case of the English club Manchester City, which faces more than 100 charges of violating the Premier League’s financial regulations, based in part on data provided by the “Football Leaks” leaks.
Pinto’s lawyers stressed that the risks facing their client are real and not hypothetical, citing his exposure to an attack in the capital, Lisbon, last April, as well as the involvement of influential figures with huge financial solvency in the files he revealed.
It is noteworthy that the “Football Leaks” leaks began in 2015, including highly confidential documents related to player contracts, transfer deals, and financial transactions of clubs and agents, which sparked a storm of investigations throughout the European continent.
Last April, Pinto was acquitted of all charges in a second trial, after he had been convicted in September 2023 of cyber crimes and attempting to blackmail a sports investment fund, and he was sentenced to 4 years in prison with a suspended sentence.
Pinto was arrested in Hungary in January 2019 before being extradited to Portugal, where he spent more than a year in pretrial detention, before he decided to cooperate with the authorities and grant them access to encrypted data in his possession.
