Is the man behind 'Football Leaks' a whistleblower? How does his case compare with other sports whistleblowers?
“A whistleblower as someone who is ‘in the room’. It is someone who takes action to blow the whistle knowing that if they don’t, nothing will change and, most likely, things will get worse. By taking the action they do, they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.” (author, 2015)
Rui Pinto of Portugal is under house arrest in an apartment owned by the Portuguese police after authorities allowed him to leave prison in April.
His release from prison came because of the coronavirus pandemic which means he is seen as less of a flight risk than previously, because of mostly closed European borders.
The 31 year old Pinto is also reported to be cooperating with authorities in providing access to the 3.4 terabytes of data that he allegedly obtained from hacking the websites of player agents, clubs, players and others, known as Football Leaks. This is estimated to be equivalent to 70 million individual documents. There are ten hard drives encrypted by Pinto which the criminal investigation Polícia Judiciária (PJ) has not been able to access.
Pinto has also been named as the hacker behind Malta Files and the Luanda Leaks. The latter focused on Isabel dos Santos, Africa‘s richest woman and her family. Following the investigation‘s publication, Angolan authorities charged the billionaire dos Santos, daughter of Angola‘s former president, with fraud, money laundering and embezzlement of public funds.
According to Pinto‘s lawyer William Bourdon – who also worked with clients such as Edward Snowden, Michel Platini (FIFA, UEFA), Lamine Diack (IAAF, IOC), Hervé Falciani (Swissleaks) and Antoine Deltour (Luxleaks) – the case of Isabel dos Santos has changed the perception of Pinto in his home country, Portugal. Bourdon told the New York Times‘ reporter Tariq Panja recently: “I do think Luanda Leaks has been an earthquake. It opened the eyes of the Portuguese people to his serious contribution.“
Pinto made his first appearance in a Portuguese Court in December 2019. Portuguese authorities successfully applied to Hungary – where Pinto had been living – for Pinto’s extradition on the grounds of “attempted qualified extortion, violation of secrecy and illegally accessing information”. There were initially six criminal charges against him which has now been increased by the Portuguese authorities to 147 charges.
Pinto says he launched Football Leaks via a website in September 2015 because he was concerned at the claims of corruption within football.
Not that allegations of corruption in world football were new. Thanks to journalists such as Andrew Jennings, Jens Weinreich and Thomas Kistner, such claims had been around for more than a decade, but took on a life of their own with the decision by FIFA to awards the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments to Russia and Qatar respectively.
Pinto’s Football Leaks came as the attention on FIFA and world football was at fever pitch. There had been the release of the summary report of the 21-month long Garcia inquiry into the 2018/2022 World Cup bids (known as the ‘Eckert Report’) in November 2014; the high profile resignation of Garcia from his role as head of the Ethics Committee in December 2014; the establishment of a well-organised independent campaign group known as #NewFIFANow (of which I was a co-founder) which was particularly prominent in Europe from January 2015; and, ultimately and most importantly, the FIFA arrests and subsequent announcement of formal investigations by both Swiss and US authorities.
It is hard to believe now – almost two years after the Russia World Cup and around 2.5 years to the Qatar World Cup – but throughout 2015 there was widespread speculation about whether either tournament would go ahead.
In the beginning Pinto, who referred to himself as ‘John’, suggested to journalists and others whom he approached that there was a consortium of people behind the website.
Some journalists thought it was the same group as those behind #NewFIFANow. Literally, tens of thousands of people – fans, administrators, journalists – got in touch with us in 2015, before and after the FIFA arrests, but Pinto wasn’t one of them.
There is no record of him contacting other groups that were active in advocating for change in world football at that time, such as Transparency International or the International Trade Union Confederation.
It is also understood he did not attempt to get in touch with the US or Swiss authorities who were both known to be actively investigating FIFA and world football by the time Pinto allegedly commenced his hacking regime.
In light of all the spotlight focussed on FIFA and football corruption at that time, it is curious that a lone wolf disaffected football fan – as Pinto and his supporters like to describe him – didn’t reach out to at least one of these groups, or either or both sets of investigative authorities.
Instead, he apparently conducted his hacking activities in splendid isolation of what was going on around him, published the Football Leaks website, and approached a range of journalists about what he had. His introductory email read:
“This project aims to show the hidden side of football. Unfortunately, the sport we love so much is rotten and it is time to say ‘enough.’
Eventually, one of the many journalists Pinto contacted, Rafael Buschmann of Germany’s Der Spiegel, got in touch with him and there began Buschmann’s relationship with Pinto, culminating in Buschmann securing the Football Leaks cache for Der Spiegel.
The Football Leaks documents have resulted in a series of revelations published through a journalists' network, but also involving online and traditional media in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia and Spain.
The revelations have been big news in the sporting world in Europe. They have also led to police investigations, arrests and prosecutions in a number of European countries. With Pinto continuing to assist authorities, it may well lead to more.
In other words, there is no question that the documents Pinto managed to obtain are authentic. The point where there are questions is around Pinto’s status.
Not surprisingly, considering his own journalistic star has risen because of Football Leaks, Buschmann has promoted Pinto as a brave and noble whistleblower, as do individuals such as Giles Raymond who has formed The Signals Network, a group that supports six whistleblowers worldwide.
Towards the end of last year, Pinto was interviewed in jail sympathetically by Buschmann and Christoph Winterbach of Der Spiegel, with Pinto stating that he does not himself a hacker, but a whistleblower motivated by the “urge to personally fight injustice and crime in the football world”.
But little about Pinto or Football Leaks is consistent with the characteristics of other whistleblowers: first, because of the pathology of how Pinto came to have the data; and second, how he dealt with it.
Mega hack
For a start, the sheer magnitude of the hacking is more consistent with a state actor than an individual football fan sitting on his sofa at home, hacking in his spare time.
The timing of the appearance of the Football Leaks site – just a few months after the football world imploded with the first FIFA arrests – could well be a pointer. It barely raises an eyebrow now – even after the recent Superseding Indictment by the US authorities – but in the northern hemisphere summer and autumn of 2015, there was widespread speculation around the viability of Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022.
As Football Leaks lifted the lid on other malfeasance in football, it served as a diversion to what had been the central issue of FIFA (or football) corruption, particularly the Swiss investigations which were focussed at that time on the 2018/2022 decisions. Who would have the means and motivation to divert attention from the 2018/2022 decisions?
Of course, there are other examples of large scale hacking and the impact it can have outside of football and sport.
For example, the emails hacked by Russia and published by WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 US Presidential election; the hacking of the campaign offices of Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in their 2017 elections; the alleged attempt by Russia’s Intelligence Directorate (known colloquially as the GRU) in 2018 to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons at the time that organisation was examining samples of the chemical agent used in the attempted murder in the UK of Sergei Skripal, a Russian double-agent; and the publication in 2019 of correspondence between the British Ambassador to the US and the Foreign Office.
In sport, the GRU-backed Fancy Bears hacked into, and then leaked information from databases related to anti-doping held by, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), World Athletics (formerly IAAF), the US Olympic Committee and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport in 2016, and FIFA in 2017. In some instances, they allegedly changed the results to damage the reputations of high profile (non-Russian) athletes by falsely claiming that they were using banned or performance-enhancing drugs.
Fancy Bear’s introductory words on the website that revealed WADA and IAAF data (some of it false) described themselves as an “international hack team who stand for fair play and clean sport”.
Seven Russian men, all officers of the GRU, were indicted by a US federal grand jury on charges of hacking, wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering in relation to these and other offences “as part of an influence and disinformation campaign designed to undermine, retaliate against and otherwise deligitimize WADA” following the publication of the McLaren Report into state-sponsored doping.
Qatar and the International Centre for Sport Security have also been accused of widespread hacking and surveillance of government officials, football players, activists, journalists and others even before the stand-off between Arab states.
What is a whistleblower?
When whistleblowing first became a concept, it was defined by economist Professor Albert O Hirschman in 1970, then of Harvard University, as an ‘act of dissent’.
According to Hirschman, when facing inappropriate behaviour in organisations, employees might react three ways: exiting the organisation, staying loyal and accepting the behaviour, or voicing concerns to allow the organisation to improve its behaviour. He also argued that there was a need for public voicing of concerns – the act of dissent – because organisations have a public face and a social responsibility.
The Norway-based U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre defines the four key characteristics of whistleblowing as involving:
wrongdoings at the workplace;
a breach of law or unethical practices, corruption, maladministration;
wrongdoings reported internally or externally;
a public interest dimension.
Pinto’s lawyer, William Bourdon, says he is a different type of whistleblower, motivated by indignation; a football fan upset at the greed and corruption that set the tone of much of 2015 in the football world.
European law
The European Parliament voted in 2019 to strengthen whistleblower protections with a new directive to be applied across the continent in an attempt to deal with fragmented policies. Football Leaks was used as one of the justifications for the new law.
The directive gives whistleblowers the right to raise issues at work without reprisal, directly with government, or to make them public via the media. Motives are irrelevant.
However, despite using Football Leaks as a justification, the new European directive still does not cover individuals such as Pinto who do not have an organisational connection and who – even if we believe him when he says he acted entirely alone in hacking 3.4 terabytes of data – is short on detail when it comes to the how and why of what he did.
Most whistleblowers have a clear motivation and can articulate it; Pinto does not beyond his self-proclaimed status as an “a kind of Robin Hood … an avenger of normal football fans”.
There are some who take the view, such as the Norwegian-French jurist and former Greens MEP Eva Joly, that Portugal should take a stand and introduce measures to protect individuals such as Pinto, rather than protect the “powerful and corrupt” in football.
In a blog for MediaPart (one of the EIC network), Joly says Portugal has done “nothing” to fight football corruption and it needs to “evolve” for Pinto as well as for anyone else who might be considering revealing information potentially in the public interest.
In his interview towards the end of 2019 with Buschmann and Winterbach, Pinto called on the European Commission to intervene in his case.
What about other whistleblowers?
In recent years, world sport has had a number of whistleblowers, all of whom fit the description and charateristics of Hirschmann and the U4 Anti-Corruption Resources Centre.
Mario Goijman
Mario Goijman provides a dramatic contrast to Pinto.
Early this century, the former Argentine volleyball official exposed the corruption of the world volleyball association (FIVB) dating back as far as the World Volleyball Championships in Argentina in 2002. As President of the Argentine Volleyball Federation at the time, Goijman was heavily involved in the organisation of the world championship. Thanks to bank guarantees provided by Goijman, the Argentine Federation essentially bankrolled the tournament, helping to present a better image of both the sport and his country in the midst of a financial crisis.
Soon after the championship, Goijman expressed concerns about the accuracy of accounts which led to further revelations of forgery, false accounting, secret contracts and crooked property deals.
As a consequence of him speaking out, Goijman and the Argentine Federation were expelled from the FIVB. Funds that the Federation were owed on account of the world championships were withheld by the President of FIVB, against whom Goijman had spoken out.
Eventually, the President of the FIVB was forced to depart both the FIVB and the IOC after it was confirmed that he had personally enriched himself with USD$33 million. Goijman personally funded the legal case to pursue the former FIVB President.
Everything Goijman had said was true.
Like many whistleblowers, Goijman didn’t seek the attention he inevitably received but he became enemy number one both to the men he brought down and others in world volleyball, and a hero to ordinary fans of the sport. To this day, Goijman has never been welcomed back to the sport he loves.
He has never been repaid the money that he personally guaranteed on behalf of the Argentine Volleyball Federation, or that he spent on legal costs. He has lost his business, his home and his belongings.
He is still fighting a Court case against the FIVB trying to recoup what he is owed for the 2002 World Championships.
As he wrote in an open letter to the FIVB in 2012:
“Is it too much to expect a different reward for defending honesty, integrity and dignity? … Life is a nightmare for me; I cry every night … Did I do anything not within the law or not in keeping with the spirit of the sport? I cannot understand such hatred!”
Grigory Rodchenkov
Dr Grigory Rodchenkov is the former head of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) who oversaw the development and distribution of banned performance-enhancing drugs for thousands of Russian athletes for a decade.
He confirmed the extensive nature of Russia’s doping program in 2016, after two compatriots, Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov, exposed the program and his role in it. His decision to become a whistleblower resulted in a dramatic late night secret departure from his home in Moscow, never to return.
Rodchenkov’s records and knowledge led to the independent McLaren Report and subsequent partial bans of Russia from both summer and winter Olympics.
In October last year, I had the opportunity to present at the biennial Play the Game conference that highlighted the impact of whistleblowing on individual whistleblowers. Also speaking were Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov, and Bryan Fogel, director of the award winning film Icarus which focuses on the work of Rodchenkov.
Fogel showed excerpts of his film accompanied by a lengthy and impassioned speech that lashed WADA for failing to do anything to support Rodchenkov once he turned whistleblower.
Rodchenkov is in witness protection in the USA, but according to Fogel, is not materially supported by US authorities or WADA and lives a life in hiding and in fear.
Fogel painted a picture of Rodchenkov as a hero of world sport; one who has given up his family and his career for the sake of revealing the dirty secrets of the state-sanctioned doping regime in Russia about which there are still repercussions.
Fogel said that Rodchenkov is Russia’s ‘most wanted man’ and there are suggestions the Trump administration has been approached about a prisoner swap: the Russians get Rodchenkov, the Americans get Edward Snowden.
Rodchenkov is likely never to emerge from hiding while the people in power in Russia are still there. He is unlikely to be forgiven by the likes of President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the former Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, who was forced to leave his FIFA position because of the scandal: nonetheless, Mutko is now one of Medvedev’s deputies.
Rodchenkov, said Fogel, is a whistleblower desperately in need of support.
Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov
There is no question of Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov’s credibility as whistleblowers, but before the couple became the highest profile whistleblowers in world sport today, their marriage almost dissolved because of Vitaly’s wish to tell the truth.
Yuliya, an 800 metre athlete, did not want to be involved in speaking out against the system overseen by Rodchenkov that had helped make her a first class runner, and through which she had competed at World and European championships.
The couple applied for divorce. However, under Russian law, a couple that has applied for divorce must then live together for another year before the marriage is permanently dissolved.
On February 8 2013, the day they were headed to the registry office to sign-off on their marriage after their 12 month wait for dissolution, Yuliya had a change of heart.
It was then she joined her husband in what he calls their “amazing journey … fighting for doping as a family.”
Her decision not only saved the Stepanov’s marriage, but gave living, breathing proof of an athlete who had been subject to the doping system in place.
It was one thing for an employee of RUSADA who knew what was taking place to speak out, as Vitaly had attempted to do; but the power of an athlete who took part in the program and was speaking out, was extraordinary.
The Stepanovs tried to tell WADA and the IOC what was going on inside Russian sport, but neither organisation wanted to know. Eventually WADA investigator Jack Robertson realised the agency was not going to do anything and got permission from his bosses to put the whistleblowers in touch with the German journalist Hajo Seppelt.
Two years later, in the summer of 2016, Jack Robertson told ProPublica‘s David Epstein:
“The IOC questioned her (Yuliya‘s) motives for speaking out. David, for all of my career I ran informants and whistleblowers, and every time I had to determine what their motivation was for cooperating. Some for revenge, some for money, some for lighter punishments, some to atone for sins. In my 30-plus years in investigations, I have never ever met two people that had more pure motives than Yulia and Vitaly. Yulia was not even seeking a reduction of her sentence. She was entitled to that, but she took the full ban, and never once requested from me that it should be lessened. They had to leave everything, not just careers but their home. Their sole motive is to allow future Russian athletes be able to compete without doping if they don’t want to. In Russia, they’ve been labeled traitors. The one thing Yulia ever asked for in return was to be able to compete as a clean athlete in the Olympics. If she said nothing, she’d have a home and a salary and be in Rio de Janeiro right now.”
Instead, IOC‘s Executive Board accepted the recommendation of the Ethics Commission and banned Yulia Stepanova from the Rio Olympics:
“While it is true that Mrs Stepanova’s testimony and public statements have made a contribution to the protection and promotion of clean athletes, fair play and the integrity and authenticity of sport, the Rules of the Olympic Charter related to the organisation of the Olympic Games run counter to the recognition of the status of neutral athlete. Furthermore, the sanction to which she was subject and the circumstances in which she denounced the doping practices which she had used herself, do not satisfy the ethical requirements for an athlete to enter the Olympic Games.”
Like Rodchenkov, the Stepanovs had to flee Russia. However, unlike Rodchenkov, the Stepanovs are not fearful for their lives. They are residents in the USA. Vitaly has earned a Masters’ degree, and Yuliya continues to train and coach and look after their six-year old child. In contrast to most whistleblowers, Vitaly described their experience as whistleblowers as “75 per cent positive”.
Nonetheless, they have been subject to hacking. Russian media have attacked their characters and Yuliya’s mother has received criticism at work because of her “unpatriotic” daughter. Putin has called Yuliya a “Judas”.
Phaedra Almajid
Phaedra Almajid is an American-born former international media manager for the Qatar 2022 bid. She was employed by the Qatar bid in 2009, and her employment was terminated in March 2010 for unknown reasons.
She shot to prominence in November 2010 when The Sunday Times duo of Jonathan Calvert and Claire Newell revealed under Parliamentary Privilege in the UK – and without Almajid’s knowledge – that a ‘source’ had informed them that the CEO of the Qatar 2022 Bid team had made an offer of $500,000 cash each to three African voters in Angola in January 2010. Their source was Almajid.
This account set the narrative around Qatar’s subsequent win for many years afterwards, though everyone else named by Almajid in her account denies such a meeting ever took place. One man she claimed to be a witness to the meeting was subsequently established not to be in Angola, but in Germany on holiday.
In 2011, Almajid published an open letter on a free website apologising to FIFA, her former Qatari employers and the three FIFA executive committee members she had named, writing that she had been going through a difficult time in her life and she had lied. The immediate reaction from most journalists and commentators was disbelief.
When contacted by media about this public retraction, she said she agreed to do it under duress as a Qatari official had visited her at her home in the USA and had threatened to sue her for $1 million. Through the intervention of journalist Andrew Jennings, who was then assisting the FBI and IRS with their investigations into FIFA, Almajid was helped by the FBI.
Not surprisingly, Almajid was ‘Witness #1’ when Michael Garcia commenced his so-called independent investigation into the 2018/2022 World Cup bidding process in 2012 commissioned by FIFA.
Almajid says she gave Garcia and his team of investigators everything she had: photographs, messages, business cards, notes of meetings. However, Garcia determined that she was “not credible” because of irrelevant reasons related to her private life – nothing to do with the substance of her claim regarding the meeting in Angola.
Almajid lives and works in the USA.
Danny Mackey, Steve Magness and Kara Goucher
Danny Mackey, Steve Magness and Kara Goucher are a former scientist, coach/scientist and athlete respectively who had an involvement with the now defunct Nike Oregon Project run by former marathon runner, Alberto Salazar. Amongst others, Salazar was the coach of four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah of Britain, American marathon runner Galen Rupp and Sifan Hassan, a middle distance runner from Ethiopia.
Salazar was found to have violated the anti-doping code through violations that included trafficking in testosterone, tampering with the doping control process and administering improper infusions of L-carnitine, a naturally occurring substance that converts fat into energy.
Mackey was the first to make contact with the United State Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in 2009, followed by Magness and then Goucher.
Goucher says it was an emotionally difficult decision for her to get in touch with both USADA and the FBI in 2011 because she had once regarded Salazar as a father figure, but her suspicions became louder and louder after the birth of her child when Salazar wanted her to start a regime of thyroid treatment after she had recommenced training.
Over the course of the ten years it took to bring Salazar to account, the trio have been ridiculed, castigated and dismissed in the usual way of whistleblowers. Matters irrelevant to the doping accusations were brought up by Salazar and his supporters, as if they disqualified the three from talking.
Each of them endured threats, including from former colleagues; they have lost friendships, sponsorships and career opportunities; they have endured panic attacks; and, in Mackey’s case, his marriage broke-up.
Bonita Mersiades
My own whistleblowing experience began more than ten years ago when I was still a senior executive employee of Football Federation Australia (FFA) which was then bidding for the 2018/2022 World Cup.
I didn’t contextualise what I was doing at the time in terms of being a whistleblower. From my perspective, I was simply raising concerns and questions internally within FFA that I had about the World Cup bidding process especially as the Australian bid has received $50 million of public money.
I said that the bidding process itself was flawed, and I was concerned about what I termed the ‘reputational risk’ we were running by engaging with various FIFA executive committee members through three international consultants with shady reputations who we had employed to assist us with the bid. One of those consultants appeared in the recent US Department of Justice Superseding Indictment as ‘co-conspirator #3’.
It was clear to me that the bids would never be assessed on the basis of merit or evidence, but where the most lucrative ‘deals’ were being made, and which favours were granted to certain FIFA executive committee members. I also said that this was because FIFA’s level of governance was sub-standard and the institution was fundamentally corrupt.
My sorrow – as a lifelong football fan – and professional regret was that Australia was choosing to take part in this process, rather than to step back from it and try to expose and address it.
However, the outcome from making those uncomfortable observations and asking difficult questions was to lose my job in early 2010, just about ten months before the infamous vote that saw Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) win.
After initially trying to raise the concerns internally within FFA, I went to the media.
Throughout the ten years, I have been the subject of gossip, innuendo, sexism, racism, ageism, abuse and vile commentary in the media, online forums and social media, and institutionally within powerful organisations from FIFA, FFA, and also former colleagues, acquaintances, journalists, people who have never met me, and even people who I thought were friends. I have been threatened legally and physically.
I have also been the subject of surveillance, both before and after my employment. I have been bugged, hacked on two occasions, ambushed and denigrated. I have had fake websites set-up in my name; I have had fake Bitcoin accounts set-up in my name; as well as fake Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In accounts, as recently as this year.
I was also a witness who Michael Garcia, FIFA’s investigator, spoke with at length on five occasions about the 2018/2022 bidding process. Due entirely to the matters I discussed with him and the evidence I led him to, Garcia found that Australia was the worst behaved bid, followed closely by England. Everything I had told him was true. However, he also said that Russia and Qatar did nothing wrong and that the two whistleblowers – Almajid and myself – were not to be believed.
It was, as a US attorney who contacted me later said, “Whistleblowing 101 in terms of how to deal with someone you want to shut-up”.
These continuous assaults take time, money, and huge doses of emotional and physical energy to deal with each and every time – for ten years and counting.
Just like Mario Goijman, even though I was right about everything I said – as Garcia agreed – it has had little impact on my reintegration into the local football community, one in which I have been a volunteer continuously for 30 years.
What is the outcome for whistleblowers?
For most, the outcome of being a whistleblower isn’t positive and doesn’t go away.
This was observed also by Emeritus Professor Fred C Alford from the University of Maryland who has worked with and met many whistleblowers in his work in the area of public policy, government and political theory.
“At first I assumed that the whistleblowers, mostly middle-aged men and women, were talking about recent experiences: blowing the whistle, experiencing retaliation, getting fired. Only after a couple of months did I realize that most were talking about events five, ten, 15, or even 20 years ago. Their narratives seemed so fresh, their pain still so sharp, it was hard to believe they were talking about ancient history, or at least so it seemed to me … The odd thing about whistleblower narratives, beyond their aura of timelessness, 20 years ago as recent as today, is that they never stop.”
In the full article, Alford also says that most whistleblowers are ‘stuck in static time’ because they never see a resolution to what they blew the whistle about. In other words, they did the right thing – but those who did the wrong thing are not brought to justice.
Are there shades of grey?
Each of the examples above have common experiences, which are materially different from Pinto and Football Leaks.
The individuals have worked in or around the organisation.
They have been concerned about unethical practices, corruption or maladministration.
They have tried to deal with the wrongdoings internally before taking them externally (other than Almajid).
All have a public interest dimension.
Pinto wasn’t ‘in the room’ when any of the events occurred which the Football Leaks data reveals.
He wouldn’t know the context, the nuances, the pauses or inflections in the spoken word, how people were seated, how they behaved towards one another, the things unsaid and unwritten but understood by the protagonists involved.
It is also difficult for many to believe that Pinto decided to give up his 3.4 terabytes of material for nothing.
Other journalists have reported that when Pinto was still masquerading as ‘John’, he was seeking money in return for the material. This is consistent with the fact that one of the claims against him by Portuguese authorities is related to extortion in return for ensuring the material detrimental to their clients and operations never saw the light of day.
While some believe that Pinto might well have been motivated to try hacking because of the significant events surrounding FIFA in 2015, the record also suggests that Pinto knew exactly what he had in his possession and wanted to make the most of it.
If Der Spiegel and Buschmann are telling the truth, and they just got lucky by Pinto agreeing to hand over Football Leaks for no exchange of money or other financial support, does the fact that Pinto attempted previously to make money out of the secrets he had access to disqualify him from being referred to as a whistleblower?
While Pinto is not the same as Goijman, Rodchenkov, the Stepanovs, Almajid, Mackey, Magness, Goucher and Mersiades (and others), does that mean he did not act in the public interest?
Should Pinto be afforded the same status as the others who were ‘in the room’ and who had nothing to gain and everything to lose?
Hacking implies criminality. Leaking implies opportunism. Whistleblowing implies heroism.
The Portuguese Court will decide how Pinto is regarded in sports anti-corruption history. Can we trust the Portuguese justice system to get it right?
This article was first published in the May 2020 edition of 'Sport + Politics', a mainly German language quarterly publication, and is reproduced with the permission of the publisher.
Photo of Mario Gojman: Tine Harden, Play the Game