This is how Rui Pinto hacked PSG or Manchester City

Rui Pinto believe ‘Football Leaks’ in the summer of 2015. The Portuguese computer scientist, 38 years old and a Porto fan, began by uncovering irregularities in transfers in the Portuguese league, although shortly after he began hacking various clubs in Europe, including the PSG and the Manchester City up to storing 70 million data through phishing emails. This is how he accessed his email inboxes and then began to anonymously publish all that information on a blog: ‘Football Leaks’.

In this way he has managed to take Manchester City to court. Tariq Panja, international football correspondent for the New York Times, explains in ‘El País’ that “thanks to the revelations of ‘Football Leaks’ the Premier League was forced to examine the case in depth.” Furthermore, he states that Pinto “managed to uncover something that football authorities were unable or unwilling to do for many years.”

Following the indictment of Manchester City last September, accused of failing to comply with 114 counts of financial fair-play – a cause that the English club has appealed – Rui Pinto spent six years living as a protected witness in Portugal in exchange for sharing and decrypting for the Portuguese police the millions of data confiscated during his arrest. Days after the revelation of the verdict against City, on September 26, the Portuguese Justice decided that he would no longer be a protected witness.

Pinto and his lawyers have repeatedly declared that his life is in danger and finally gave him official protection again until the final ruling on his status: “Now, at any moment he can lose his official protection,” explains journalist Miguel Dantas. Rui Pinto is raising money to cover the expenses involved in his legal proceedings and what it means to “live in secret.” At the moment he has collected 28,000 euros, but he needs 3 million.