Whistleblower ‘John’, ‘Football Leaks’ for years dirty was buitenhing, occurs out of anonymity: I am afraid that if I was in a Portuguese prison ended up, that is not alive will leave

Football The Portuguese whistleblower ‘John’, aka Rui Pinto (30), at the end of last week in an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel for the first time, from after he the past few years with revelations that the football world to its foundations had do shake. He lives since last week under house arrest in his apartment in Budapest, but may be extradited to Portugal. And there he is not particular comfortable. “I'm afraid that, if I were in a Portuguese prison ended up, especially in Lisbon, I don't have a living will leave.”

The idea of Football Leaks to launch, shot in the fall of 2015. “I have been from childhood a football fan, and I realized all around the time of the Bosman-ruling that the football is all wrong developed,” says Pinto. “The best young players went automatically to the top teams. The whole competition changed in favor of the clubs. The main reason was the FIFA scandal in 2015. Regardless of all the arrests at the international federation, I saw that there are also irregularities were numerous transfers within Portugal. That more and more investors in this market have been displaced. I began to collect data.”

Ronaldo is my favorite player. I consider him as the most complete footballer of the history. But his behavior off the field should be very otherwise be assessed. In a criminal sense

Rui Pinto

More than 70 million confidential documents has Pinto, meanwhile, is in hands, with sensitive information about the international voetbalindustrie. “I have the disclosure of such documents set in motion, but I'm not the only one. Systematically, there were more and more sources for their info with me have shared, making the database only, but expanded. That shows that there are many people who are concerned about what is happening in the world of football plays”, it sounds also Pinto, who denies ever to have money knocked off the power that his knowledge about the criminal practices in the voetbalindustrie him. He confirms, however, that he has multiple offers has got to have data to sell. “One time I got an anonymous e-mail, and I have more than half a million euro was offered, but I rejected.”