Remember Football Leaks? Portuguese whistleblower already knows the penalty for revealing dirty secrets

Football Leaks was founded in 2015 by Portuguese whistleblower Rui Pinto. From the beginning, this football website was intended to expose the dirty secrets of professional football. And it has succeeded in doing just that. But now this former history student has been sentenced to a four-year suspended sentence.

The information from Football Leaks, which was then working with the German newspaper Der Spiegel, simply shocked the football world. Many people or organisations were punished for illegal behaviour, and some clubs did not escape punishment.

We have covered the biggest Football Leaks cases in several previous articles on our website. Anyway, Pinto was arrested for the first time in 2019 in Hungary, he managed to hide successfully for a very long time.

However, all materials, whether they were original contracts, forms of exit clauses or agreements on financial flows with third parties, were also not obtained legally by Pinto. Offshore companies or fraud in individual competitions were also a big issue.

After his arrest in Hungary, he was later released under house arrest and placed under witness protection. His trial began in 2020.

“The court has decided that Rui Pinto will be sentenced to a single four-year sentence… but it is not necessary for him to serve his sentence in prison,” said the court, which was also quoted by Sky Sports.

“The court hopes that the contrition (shown by Rui Pinto in court) is serious and that he will henceforth refrain from carrying out the acts described herein,” it added.

Sentence – four years’ probation

He faced 90 charges including unauthorised access to data, breach of correspondence and attempted extortion. Although he admitted disclosing more than 70 million documents, he claimed he was a whistleblower acting in the public interest.

However, Judge Margarida Alves added that Pinto could not seek legal protection as a whistleblower because he had committed crimes to obtain information before he knew its contents.

However, the judgment is clear. Pinto was sentenced to a four-year suspended sentence after being found guilty of attempted extortion, unlawful access to data and breach of correspondence.

Source: Sky Sports, AP News