The hacker behind Football Leaks says Manchester City verdict proves him right

Manchester City were found guilty on the majority of 115 Premier League financial charges. The man whose leaks started the case says history has proved him right.

Rui Pinto, a 37-year-old Portuguese hacker behind the Football Leaks website, called the verdict “a historic decision” and claimed vindication, The Guardian reported on 25 September 2026. The Premier League had accused City of breaching its rules 115 times, Sky News reported.

Pinto published confidential City documents through Football Leaks, including internal emails about sponsorship deals and payments, according to BBC Sport. Those disclosures led to the Premier League charges. The BBC reported on 26 September 2026 that City were then found guilty on the majority of the counts.

It is a long road from a bedroom computer to the biggest case English football has seen. Pinto set up Football Leaks in 2015 to expose the hidden side of football. At first he operated under the pseudonym “John”. His real identity was not named until 2019.

The first journalist he contacted was Antonio Varela, then at Portuguese sports newspaper Record, in September 2015. Varela opened an anonymous message. That exchange grew into a network of leaks that pulled back the curtain on transfers, contracts and club finances.

Pinto grew up in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the Douro River from Porto. He attended Escola Secundaria Almeida Garrett. His father Francisco worked in a shoe factory and later as an antiques dealer. His mother died when he was 11. His former geography teacher was Mario Falcao.

He was a former history student. He describes himself as a whistleblower rather than a hacker, and said he acted to expose corruption in football.

The law has not seen him that simply. Pinto faced 90 charges in Portugal. A Portuguese court found him guilty of attempted extortion and illegal access to data and gave him a four-year suspended sentence. Seventy-seven other counts of improper access and breach of correspondence were pardoned under an amnesty for young people. His lawyer later said the ongoing Manchester City case was a “moral reward” for the whistleblower.

Pinto has been convicted in both Portugal and France. Then, in April 2026, he was acquitted of 241 counts in a second Portuguese trial after the court ruled the charges were ‘invalid’.

For fans, this means two stories have collided. One is about City and financial rules, the limits on what clubs can spend and how they must report income. The other is about Pinto himself: hacker or whistleblower, criminal or campaigner.

What makes this stand out is the scale of the consequence. A teenager commenting in a cage in south London learns quickly that one moment can change a game. Pinto pressed send in 2015. Eleven years later, the champions were answering for it.