‘Football Leaks’: Major revelations of a case involving players, clubs and agents

At the same time, the defendant and protected witness of the justice of his country, Rui PintoThe 34-year-old claims to be a whistleblower in the Football Leaks case but has admitted to making illegal computer intrusions to obtain millions of documents, which he began posting directly online in late 2015.

After being passed on to a consortium of European media outlets, this vast amount of information revealed questionable activities involving major stars, clubs and agents, which were subsequently subject to tax adjustments and legal investigations in several countries.

From the release of Messi or Neymar’s salaries to the rape accusation against Cristiano Ronaldo filed without consequence, using strategies to avoid Manchester City’s financial fair play or Paris Sainte’s ethnic classification of players – Germain, the football world has been shaken by this gigantic information leak.

These are the main discoveries found “Football Leaks” following the massive leak by Rui Pinto, who is expected to hear a Lisbon court verdict on Friday over alleged computer hacking and extortion attempts.

Jorge Mendes and tax fraud

The Portuguese Jorge Mendes, the spokesman for Cristiano Ronaldo and other football stars, would create a tax evasion system for his clients through a network of shell companies and offshore accounts.

Thanks to the information found “Football Leaks”In 2019, a Spanish court sentenced Cristiano Ronaldo to a fine of several million euros for tax fraud.

Portuguese coach José Mourinho, Colombian striker Radamel Falcao or Argentine midfielder Angel Di Maria, all linked to the same agent, are also on the list of coaches and players implicated in tax evasion cases.

French footballer Paul Pogba and his Italian agent Mino Raiola, who died in April 2022, have also been the subject of a tax fraud investigation.

Cristiano Ronaldo accused of rape

“Football Leaks” It turned out that the rape complaint against Cristiano Ronaldo was filed in August 2018 by American Catherine Mayorga in connection with the events that took place in mid-2009 in a Las Vegas hotel.

The five-time Ballon d’Or winner has always denied allegations of rape, saying it was a consensual relationship with a young woman. In June 2022, the complaint was filed by a Nevada court.

City, PSG and economic fair play

In 2018 “Football Leaks” show that Manchester City and Paris SG would not have followed financial fair play rules.

PSG, owned by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, would have resorted to economic doping to increase their revenues through bogus contracts.

In 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) finally agreed with PSG against UEFA having to abandon its procedure for reviewing the French club’s finances.

City were initially banned from European competition for two seasons by UEFA, but the sanctions were lifted by CAS shortly after.

Ethnic signing at PSG

According to information published by Mediapart in 2018, PSG’s transfer cell included ethnic criteria between 2013 and 2018 on their scorecards for young players classified as “French”, “Maghrebian”, “Antillano” or “African”.

The “origin” field appeared on forms designed to monitor potential associations, while French law prohibits the collection of this type of data, and this criterion was used in the decision not to submit at least one of them.

The club was fined 100,000 euros by the decision of the French league, but “in the absence of a sufficient criminal offense”, the criminal investigation into this case was closed.

‘Fifagate’

Fifagate began in 2015 with a Swiss police raid on a Zurich hotel looking for various FIFA officials following an FBI investigation.

As part of this case, which revealed a vast system of corruption affecting mainly the federations in the Americas, “Football Leaks” revealed secret meetings between future FIFA President Gianni Infantino and former Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber.

(According to AFP)