The brains behind Football Leaks named

The man in question is 27-year-old Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto

Posted Tuesday, March 08, 2016 by Marca.com

Who has not asked themselves the following question in recent months: Who is behind Football Leaks? Football Leaks is a popular website which publicises private documents related to some of the world's biggest football clubs. Transfers, deals, wages... Very few teams have prevented Football Leaks from going public with their documents, but now, according to Football Leaks Revealed, the man behind the website has a name.

That name is Rui Pinto, a 27-year-old Portuguese Budapest resident with a criminal past, and present it would seem, as a hacker. Rui Pinto has used a string of hacking techniques to gather information and leak details related to players' contracts at a number of teams. On top of that, he has received plenty of help from, amongst other people, his lawyer Anibal Pinto, with whom he used to communicate with using Tor, in order to avoid detection.

The lawyer contacted several Portuguese clubs demanding money in exchange for not going public with the documents. In doing so, Rui and Anibal allegedly extorted and blackmailed a string of clubs. When these did not pay up, they posted the documents on Football Leaks. Even though the website advocates transparency in football and advertises itself as a place where any fan can access documents relating to their team, there were clearly financial motives behind its creation.