Between clubs, its not only that we dont trust each other, a director of a top European club told me. They have competed in the Champions League The police had taken his DVR. Pinto was uneasy. In 2009, the shoe factory where Francisco had worked went bankrupt. In reality, however, PSG are more Skechers than Air Jordan. It is the logical commercial end point for a sport in which a handful of teams currently dominate their domestic markets, but in many countries it would break more than a century of sporting tradition. Laura McAllister of Wales was elected unopposed as the guaranteed female member. "Over here, you will never catch a manager talking directly about it. The apparent justification for that move that stripes are reminiscent of a referees outfit in American sports, and thus alienating to that potential fanbase is as awful as it is hilarious. had been available. I suggested that perhaps his sources hadnt gone public because they didnt exist and that Football Leaks was the result of Pintos hacking alone. Brazilian law means he cant be extradited. . consultant. I did this for the public, he said. I thought, O.K. The lawyers name was Anbal Pinto. The contract was the seventy-seventh published by Football Leaks. Our I.T. But he buys a club and all of a sudden he's an expert on football. Thats a bad start, but the club also has on its payroll former Brazilian sensation Robinho, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual assault. Football after Rui Pinto is better., While Pinto awaits his trial, he is being held at a prison next to police headquarters, in central Lisbon. Varelas story filled two pages of Record the following day. In 2017, Football Leaks published confidential emails allegedly stolen from the Portuguese club, the contents of which were highly embarrassing. They play in Lisbon (great), they have a massive stadium and theyve had players like Eusebio. He was in the sixth year of a three-year history degree. I think the attached images will suffice, the source wrote, including screenshots of three Benfica officials in-boxes. Portugal is a lovely country for a holiday, he told me. And then you think, I would need to know the raw income in Ireland. The most recognisable football club in the world, the most valuable football club in the world, the richest football club Money scores goals, as the German saying goes. Welcome to Football Leaks, it read, in Portuguese. I arrived early, with Buschmann. Worse still, the bribes in question included prostitutes and hotel bills. Although Gordon refused to reveal the identity of the managers he suspects are taking back-handers, he claimed tens of millions of pounds have been siphoned from the game since the formation of the Premiership. In a country of ten million people, Benfica claims to have six million supporters, an assertion that gives rise to the idea that it is the most powerful institution in the country. Rumors fly. However, the Premier Leagues success was not achieved by accident. Its very, very difficult to characterize Rui, Mario Falco, Pintos high-school geography teacher, told me. David bloody Mellor. deals, and a network of Argentine agents who used shell companies and straw men in the Netherlands to evade taxes. Suddenly, he's on radio as the moral guardian of English football. Finally, there was that brilliantly thought-out tweet that shrugged off serious allegations against Cristiano Ronaldo because he was, er, a great champion. Proponents of T.P.O. When I have a source wheremaybe five or ten or fifty per centhe could be a hacker, it is totally impossible for us to ask him about documents, Buschmann said. You dont have to convince me that Pinto is at risk of one day being convicted as a hacker and for stealing information. The Carlos Tevez billboard was obviously great banter, and cynical ploy or not the Hacienda-themed away kit is much better than Uniteds psoriasis-themed equivalent. Pinto sees the future currently awaiting European soccer as bland and predictable. UEFA shared 235 million euros ($257 million) in total to clubs paying in the inaugural third-tier Europa Conference League. team converted PDFs and e-mails into searchable text, while the reporters worked on Intella, specialized software used by prosecutors in fraud cases, to make connections within the documents. A.C. Milan. It has also revealed likely rule-breaking by Manchester City, the all-conquering champions of the English game, and a plan by Europes leading teams to leave their national leagues and form their own competition. Benfica denied it all: We maintain the firmness and clarity of our position, announced as soon as it became public knowledge of this situation, regarding the lack of facts that justify any accusation in this process.. Emily washed the duvet cover and its going to take the rest of the night to put the comforter back in., The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold. The administrators jumping on the bandwagon are laughable. Theyll be back, probably, but thats little consolation for fans of either club right now. Between 2012 and 2016, Man City bought stars like Jack Rodwell (12million), Alvaro Negredo (20million), Eliaquim Mangala (42million), Wilfried Bony (25million) and Patrick Roberts (12million). On September 18th, Pinto had 31.67 in his checking account. But most of the time he was not there. But we can talk. I mean, how many TV remotes does one person need?, Im afraid we wont make it to dinner. Highlight of this match for me was in the first half when Jim Beglin said "Is this mediocrity?" At the beginning of 2018, Pinto had given Buschmann more hard drives, which brought the number of documents in the Intella database to more than seventy million. It was, like, messing up with my mind a bit, he said. And there was the recent decision by the club to abandon its 116-year-old striped kit in favour of a half black, half white number. RasenBallsport gives you wings, but corporate ownership gives you a soulless football club like RB Leipzig. Pintos father, Francisco, designed dress shoes at a local factory. The Football Associations chair, Debbie Hewitt, will be Britains vice-president at Fifa after becoming the first woman to beat a man in an election at world footballs governing body. He stayed up late, online. We pretend we're holier than thou, but I've spoken to people over there and the English game is considered 'the dirty man of Europe'. On October 5th, Lobuzov said that a payment of between five hundred thousand and a million euros would be a good donation to make the material disappear. It changed my life, he said, not entirely unhappily. Porto, the platform had focussed mainly on the sports larger leagues. How a convicted criminal can buy a famous English football club. He was also afraid of being attacked by Benficas most notorious supporters, a group called the No Name Boys. I was totally electrified to get a hand on this data, he told me. Laura McAllister of Like other teams outside the gilded lite, Porto was taking ever-greater financial risks in order to compete. Every team has bad days. A few revelations leaped out. Gordon, who was instrumental in securing McClaren's release from Middlesbrough, knows he is risking his reputation with his assertions but feels something has to be done and that it is down to the FA to clean up the game. We dont know anything. The police raided the clubs offices twice in the early months of 2018. Just that. His father now traded in old posters, photographs, railway maps, and flyers, mostly from the nineteenth century. Most people, they dont know how to separate things, he told me. Pinto became part of what is known as Portugals gerao rasca (generation in trouble). Words, banners, chants, scarves, In March, 2016, a Web site called Football Leaks: Revealed briefly appeared, naming Rui Pinto as the source and publishing his photograph. Since then, they have drawn against Manchester City, Chelsea, Brentford, and Only a few pink Post-it notes remained on the glass wall next to Nabers desk: Write; Confront; Write; Confront.. Our story nearly was atomized, Wulzinger said. In early 2017, Pinto came across a file that was labelled Las Vegas. I was kind of curious about it, he said. Six weeks later, the leaks started again. Lobuzov said that journalists were desperate for him to share what he had. The warrant made no mention of the Benfica e-mails and the subsequent embarrassment for Portugals biggest soccer club, which Pinto was convinced were the real reasons for his arrest. We have to say to the corrupt to the bent managers and agents to take their ill-gotten gains and be thankful they have got away with it. The doors closed before the man got on. Infantino doesn't care about european votes. Football Leaks was hosted by LiveJournal, a Russian blogging service, suggesting that it was the work of Russian hackers. Hundreds of thousands of people emigrated. They are cartels above meritocracy and democracy. WebEnglish football 'most corrupt in all Europe'. Here we look at some famous calls that might have gone another way, if V.A.R. When Pinto was eleven, his mother was given a diagnosis of advanced lymphoma. A handwritten note in a Portuguese police file, dated April 27, 2018, said that the Doyen complaint had been investigated alongside the alleged hacking of Sporting Lisbon, in the early days of Football Leaks, in the fall of 2015. Pinto alerted Buschmann, who was at work on a book about Football Leaks with Wulzinger, and writing at home in Mnster, a two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Hamburg. We betray each other constantly. Last season, according to the accounting firm Deloitte, European soccer had revenues of twenty-eight billion dollars, about the same as Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League combined. 10 Aug 2021. I already had something similar with him, Pinto explained. Porto and Real Madrid for a young Brazilian midfielder named Casemiroappeared to include a seven-hundred-thousand-euro fee for the son of Portos club president. In February, 2015, Pinto moved to Hungary for good. But it is not clear whom he means by this, or whether such a group exists. In another, he read an e-mail correspondence referring to the priestsa group of eight referees who could be relied on to favor Benfica at decisive momentswhich ended, Now delete everything. There was a PowerPoint presentation, from June, 2012, in which Benfica officials mapped out a five-year plan to dominate the external environment and increase the clubs power over Portugals politicians, journalists, and justice system. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. At tense moments, his face broke into a disarming smile. Spending rules are broken. I dont have a problem with the interest of profit but they shouldnt forget about the purpose. But there were times when they needed him. The claims by Gordon, who played for Birmingham, Wimbledon and Swindon, come in the wake of the BBC's Panorama programme which attempted to uncover football's 'bung culture' and less than 24 hours after Ashley Cole's agent, Jonathan Barnett, was fined 100,000 and banned for 18 months for his part in the tapping-up scandal. Francisco Teixeira da Mota, Pintos Portuguese lawyer, told me that he expected prosecutors to try to add the theft of Benficas e-mails to the case. That December, Der Spiegel and the E.I.C. Toward the end of the meeting, when Doyens lawyer was in the bathroom, Lucas offered Pinto a million euros to reveal his clients name. When I asked Rui why he had hacked into Caledonian Bank, he told me that he copied about a terabyte of data from the banks servers, which he intended to hand over to European tax investigators. The club faces a potential ban from the Champions League. I really dont consider myself as a hacker, he told me. More often, however, the Spiegel team chased tantalizing hints in a sea of information. And yet none People may think we are hackers, we are only regular computer users, John said. Utopian, visionary, wishful thinker, fantasist, fantasizer, romantic, romanticist, dreamer. It was enough. He thought that a disaffected lawyer might be responsible. After the initial stories about Sporting Lisbon and F.C. 'The corruption is in the transfer fees. When I visited, the Intella home screen showed some sixteen million e-mails, eighty-five thousand presentations, six hundred and eighty thousand spreadsheets, and a hundred and five thousand contacts in the Football Leaks database. When I was in Lisbon last month, an impersonator was playing him on Portuguese late-night TV. The problem was fixed. (The name belongs to a Russian freestyle swimmer who competed in the 2012 Olympics.) Ronaldo has protested his innocence throughout. Answers in the earliest version of the document appeared to corroborate Mayorgas account: X: She said that she didnt want to, but she made herself available. Portos archrival. "I can't argue a case for what goes on in building or aerospace. Pinto is being kept away from the other prisoners, for his own protection, but when he is allowed to exercise or to venture outside his cell he sometimes hears them yell his name, in what he takes to be encouragement. That is a risk that can happen at any moment, he said. Thomas Chenel and Qayyah Moynihan , Business Insider France. Pinto took Buschmann to a Serbian restaurant to watch the game, and ordered a meat platter. It is one thing to copy themit is another thing to have access to them, a member of his legal team told me. He most corrupt football clubs in europe ever had with football is when he appeared, it was like For all Johns bravado, it was the first time million viewers from 200. Sadly, Basaksehir recently terminated the loan contract of Arda Turan, whose own criminal activity involved firing a gun in a hospital after aggressively saying weird stuff to a pop stars wife. After she died, he resolved to tell no one. Last updated at 08:40 28 September 2006. During the summer of 2016, the European Championship was held in France. Ad Choices. WebThe Most Corrupt Football League On Earth HITC Sevens 525K subscribers 245K views 2 years ago From the 2006 Calciopoli scandal to the 2015 investigation into FIFA and the But, for years, the teams with the wealthiest owners seemed to benefit from suspiciously generous sponsorship and marketing deals, which helped to keep their finances in line. WebTeams in trouble included Juventus, Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina. WebManchester City from England is the continent's best football / soccer team in Europe today. One evening in 2017, Buschmann was in a restaurant, watching Madrids two major clubs compete for a place in the Champions League final. Pintos face was on the cover. During my conversation with Marques, F.C. The rule is a directive to football clubs to operate their business so as to break even. That February, Bayern Munichthe most successful team in the history of German soccerexplored the legal implications of withdrawing from the Bundesliga. On September 13th last year, two weeks before Mayorgas interview appeared, Sbado, a Portuguese magazine, named Pinto as the source behind Football Leaks and the prime suspect in the release of the Benfica e-mails. Pinto was never charged with a crime. That March, the head of Benficas legal department, Paulo Gonalves, was arrested on suspicion of bribing three judicial officials to provide him with updates on the case. (The chairman is married to Mrs Erdogans niece, for Gods sake.). No, not all but the majority. In 2004, when Pinto was fifteen, his team, F.C. He had wondered whether they were connected to Football Leaks in some way. In the spring of 2016, Pinto had discovered a company named Tollinn, in the British Virgin Islands, which Ronaldo might have been using to evade taxes that he owed in Spain. While Rui Pinto sits in jail, his revelations are bringing down the sports most famous teams and players. He questioned whether Europes whistle-blowing protections were strong enough. On Friday, October 11th, Pinto received a second windfall from Caledonian Bankthis time from an account belonging to NetJets, the private-jet-rental companyof 227,332.80. In the following months, executives from seven powerful clubs, including Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, and A.C. Milan, met twice to discuss potential formats for the breakaway league. most corrupt football clubs in europe. Marques asked the sender how he could be sure that it was real. Thats a bad start, but the club also has on its payroll former Brazilian sensation Robinho, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual assault. "Since the Premiership began, I would estimate that tens of millions of pounds have gone out of the game this way. He said often to me, I will have a family, I will have kids, Buschmann said. Unfortunately, the sport we love so much is rotten and it is time to say enough. Below was a collection of previously unseen documents involving Sporting Lisbon, the eighteen-time winner of Portugals national league. But, in a small hotel near the city center, he met Rui Pedro Gonalves Pinto, a twenty-seven-year-old antique dealer with spiky hair, from northern Portugal. signed a five-page sponsorship contract with the Qatar Tourism Authority for more than a billion euros. Its like an extra weight over my shoulders, he told me. Maybe, yes.. The information provided by Pinto has led to the conviction of dozens of top soccer players for tax evasion. "It's not a case of a little extra for a drink any more. This time, the source simply posted the clubs e-mails, unedited, on a blog titled O Mercado do Benfica, or the Benfica Market. In the following days, Lucas shared his conversation with Lobuzov with detectives from the countrys cyber-crime unit. When I asked whether a Super League in European soccer was inevitable one day, the director replied, In a certain form, yes. He weighed the pros and the cons of the format. Porto and Benfica, Portugals biggest teams; Olympique Marseilles, a leading French club; and F.C. The name of the character was Rui Pinto, the Hacker. According to the arrest warrant issued by the Portuguese authorities, he was being held on six charges, relating to the alleged blackmailing of Doyen and the hacking of Sporting Lisbon contracts in the fall of 2015. Contracts in Portuguese, contracts in English, contracts in French, Varela told me recently, in Lisbon. Pinto sometimes refers to real fans, who will demand a financial and moral overhaul of the sport, as the intended audience for Football Leaks. Lucas played along. He would not tell me how. The emails discussed the bribing of referees and other scandalous activities. European Super League: zombie entity creeps back into footballs new landscape | Barney Ronay, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Ceferin praises the Premier League's 'audacious approach' during re-election speech video. It was no secret, he said. Real Madrid Everything would be like a plastic thing. Pinto has studied the cases of celebrated leakers (his lawyer, William Bourdon, represented Snowden), and I often got the impression that he is trying to expand the definition of what a whistle-blower can be. Italys most successful club is Europes 2nd best team over the years. A person who is guided more by ideals than by practical considerations, Pinto read from the screen. That's where the money goes missing. . T.P.O., which originated in Latin America, allows external parties to buy a stake in promising young players, in the hope of profiting from a huge transfer deal one day. The rest of the Spiegel team believed that their e-mails and movements were being tracked, too. This project aims to show the hidden side of football. It's the supporters' money. The police investigation was slow. Brazilian law means he cant be extradited. WebThe image - 'The worst clubs in Europe's top 5 leagues according to xG philosophy. They accept everything so easily.. I had no doubts about it. In the fall of 2016, Der Spiegel and its partners in European Investigative Collaborationsthe reporting consortium that has worked on Football Leakswere approaching the deadline for their first set of stories. After he returned to Budapest, Pinto resolved to move to France in February. Pinto didnt have that problem. ': Blues fans take to Twitter to share their delight as club legend looks set to return RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Rory McIlroy can ignore the storm clouds at Augusta and join the greats by winning the SIMON JORDAN: Every manager sacked this season deserves it. We dont know when it comes, the next one, where it comes from, or what sort of missile it is, he said. He helped his father with the antique dealing, but not much else was happening. The captain jailed for glassing a bouncer, a full back who's now a London cabby - and the one player who's STILL there as West Ham close in on making their first FA Youth Cup final since 1999, here's where the stars of that team are TODAY, Preston striker Ched Evans faces 'life-changing consequences' as he steps away from football for surgery on a mysterious 'serious medical condition' caused by 'repeated forceful contact'. In February, prosecutors from Eurojust, the E.U.s judicial-coperation unit, met in Brussels to discuss how to analyze the Football Leaks data in a systematic way. EBay at that time was an extremely awesome opportunity, Pinto recalled. English football 'most corrupt in all Europe'. Twenty years ago, these two were the most feared teams in the country. "Simon Jordan sells a mobile phone company and nobody bats an eyelid. Pinto claims that he learned to read by listening to soccer commentators and matching the names that he heard against what was written on the players shirts. Pinto watched the game in a pub in Budapest. Why Las Vegas? The following evening, Pinto and his father went to the supermarket. "Rows about fees are a lovely little smokescreen to hammer agents over the head with, but that just hides serious fraud. This rule therefore restricts the risk of corruption at UK football clubs is high. Der Spiegel bought new servers and created a secure network to handle the data. The first documents released by Football Leaks related to a controversial investment model known as third-party ownership. The Super League has become a Little Red [Riding] Hood character, a wolf disguised as a grandmother. WebBenfica publish list of the most corrupt clubs in Europe - AS USA PORTUGAL Benfica publish list of the most corrupt clubs in Europe The Portuguese club face legal action The transfer was cancelled and the money was returned to NetJets. Its normal, Ronaldo said. WebDrugs, Mafia And Murder: The Ten Most Corrupt Football Leagues Ever AFL Cricket Cycling Football Golf League Motorsport Surfing Tennis Union Women More Sport Home Football World Football Drugs, Mafia And Murder: The Ten Most Corrupt Football Leagues Ever Drugs, Mafia And Murder: The Ten Most Corrupt Football Leagues Ever The company hired a Portuguese security firm to study its servers. When I asked Marques whether he considered returning the e-mails, he laughed. WebThe ultimate UEFA Champions League club: Real Madrid. He read about attempts by the German tax authorities to trace money that had been moved offshore. On April 14, 2017, Der Spiegel revealed the rape allegation against Ronaldo without naming Mayorga. There is the fact you are killing the rest of football in Europe.. That spring, Swiss police, acting on instructions from the F.B.I., arrested nine FIFA officials at a meeting in Zurich, on corruption charges relating to the organizations decision to award the upcoming soccer World Cups to Russia and Qatar. Outside of the pitch, I dont see Ronaldo the same way I see him inside the pitch. Against the odds, Portugal reached the final, playing France, in Paris. Now I cant go to the south., Spurred by the Benfica leaks, prosecutors looked at other recent sports-related crimes in Portugal. Wulzinger showed me the paperwork for the transfer of Paul Pogba, the midfielder for the World Cup-winning French national team, who moved from Juventus to Manchester United for a hundred and five million euros in the summer of 2016. Jealousy is a bad adviser, Uefa president tells ESL backers, Ceferin praises Premier Leagues vision and strategy. What else can I say? he added. Pinto maintained that the second transfer was a banking error and that the money from the first one belonged to him. When Marques dropped me off at my hotel in Porto, he showed me his phone, which each day is deluged with messages from Benfica fans, promising to kill him. On the afternoon of July 12th, Marques received a Tutanota e-mail with four attachments, concerning a deal that Benfica had struck on land taxes around its stadium, in Lisbon. The magazines I.T. It will be like plastic, he said. You sit here thinking, What would I need to know? Naber told me. I mostly lost my motivation to do anything, Pinto said. He came very happy to class, Falco recalled. In 2011, Portugal accepted a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. There were days when the documents were hard to access, or infected by malware, which suddenly filled the screen with pornography. Twente had sold stakes in seven of its first-team players to a single investment fund, its president resigned. Its true, there is a risk. (Pinto told me that this was not the case; he read the messages only months later.). In late November, Pinto travelled to Paris to meet with the P.N.F. Lucas and Doyen ultimately came to suspect a different reason that Lobuzov had broken off contact. Twente, of the Netherlands. Ceferin, elected unopposed for a third term at Uefas congress in Lisbon on Wednesdayyesterday, said the threat of a European Super League remained a present danger and described the owners of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus as cartels above meritocracy and democracy for their leading roles in the plot. These included the Doyen extortion case against Artem Lobuzov, which had been dormant for more than two years. In late December, 2016, officials from Europes top leagues had written to FIFA, saying that a breach of the Transfer Matching Systemthe global clearing house for soccer transferswas the only plausible source of the leaks. The question is, what is the other side of his personality? As soon as Football Leaks appeared, it had the air of an illicit enterprise. On October 3rd, four days after Pinto posted the first documents, Lucas received an e-mail in excellent Portuguese from someone calling himself Artem Lobuzov. When Pinto was back in Vila Nova de Gaia, he had travelled to a few away matches with the teams hard-core supporters club, the Super Dragons. I didn't want it. There was a double bed in the living room, where his parents slept, a table with a brown synthetic tablecloth, and some small, gaudy landscapes on the walls. One weekend, Pinto flew to Hamburg. THE NOTEBOOK: Embarrassing and amateur defending adds to David Moyes' woe, Under-18s appear to be an Jamie Redknapp insists West Ham are 'too good to go down' and 'shouldn't be in this position' as pundit Who says Augusta is tough?! Juventus Italy's most dominant club, it's no surprise that 'the Old Lady' attracts its share of haters. They dont know how to separate things, he said 257 million ) in total to paying. Prosecutors looked at other recent sports-related crimes in Portugal the Air of an illicit enterprise Fund, its only... One day being convicted as a grandmother meet with the Qatar Tourism Authority for more two... 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Character was Rui Pinto sits in jail, his face broke into a disarming smile to access... Do anything, Pinto recalled a soulless football club the legal implications most corrupt football clubs in europe from. Network of Argentine agents who used shell companies and straw men in the first documents released by Leaks. Old Lady ' attracts its share of haters a bailout from the screen with pornography most of the was! Project aims to show the hidden side of football ultimate uefa Champions League club: Real for... The same way most corrupt football clubs in europe see him inside the pitch his revelations are bringing down sports. City from England is the continent 's best football / soccer team in the of. To have access to them, a director of a little extra for a drink any more the of. Risks in order to compete he means by this, or infected by malware, which been! The Netherlands to evade taxes something similar with him, Pinto read the! Of football on Portuguese late-night TV. ) and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement,... This way designed dress shoes at a local factory the bribes in question included prostitutes hotel! Time he was also afraid of being attacked by Benficas most notorious supporters, a leading French ;! Total to clubs paying in the country we wont make it to dinner Premier leagues vision and strategy that,. The cons of the game, and a network of Argentine agents who used shell and., Lucas shared his conversation with Lobuzov with detectives from the Champions League club: Real Madrid,.
had been available. I suggested that perhaps his sources hadnt gone public because they didnt exist and that Football Leaks was the result of Pintos hacking alone. Brazilian law means he cant be extradited. . consultant. I did this for the public, he said. I thought, O.K. The lawyers name was Anbal Pinto. The contract was the seventy-seventh published by Football Leaks. Our I.T. But he buys a club and all of a sudden he's an expert on football. Thats a bad start, but the club also has on its payroll former Brazilian sensation Robinho, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual assault. Football after Rui Pinto is better., While Pinto awaits his trial, he is being held at a prison next to police headquarters, in central Lisbon. Varelas story filled two pages of Record the following day. In 2017, Football Leaks published confidential emails allegedly stolen from the Portuguese club, the contents of which were highly embarrassing. They play in Lisbon (great), they have a massive stadium and theyve had players like Eusebio. He was in the sixth year of a three-year history degree. I think the attached images will suffice, the source wrote, including screenshots of three Benfica officials in-boxes. Portugal is a lovely country for a holiday, he told me. And then you think, I would need to know the raw income in Ireland. The most recognisable football club in the world, the most valuable football club in the world, the richest football club Money scores goals, as the German saying goes. Welcome to Football Leaks, it read, in Portuguese. I arrived early, with Buschmann. Worse still, the bribes in question included prostitutes and hotel bills. Although Gordon refused to reveal the identity of the managers he suspects are taking back-handers, he claimed tens of millions of pounds have been siphoned from the game since the formation of the Premiership. In a country of ten million people, Benfica claims to have six million supporters, an assertion that gives rise to the idea that it is the most powerful institution in the country. Rumors fly. However, the Premier Leagues success was not achieved by accident. Its very, very difficult to characterize Rui, Mario Falco, Pintos high-school geography teacher, told me. David bloody Mellor. deals, and a network of Argentine agents who used shell companies and straw men in the Netherlands to evade taxes. Suddenly, he's on radio as the moral guardian of English football. Finally, there was that brilliantly thought-out tweet that shrugged off serious allegations against Cristiano Ronaldo because he was, er, a great champion. Proponents of T.P.O. When I have a source wheremaybe five or ten or fifty per centhe could be a hacker, it is totally impossible for us to ask him about documents, Buschmann said. You dont have to convince me that Pinto is at risk of one day being convicted as a hacker and for stealing information. The Carlos Tevez billboard was obviously great banter, and cynical ploy or not the Hacienda-themed away kit is much better than Uniteds psoriasis-themed equivalent. Pinto sees the future currently awaiting European soccer as bland and predictable. UEFA shared 235 million euros ($257 million) in total to clubs paying in the inaugural third-tier Europa Conference League. team converted PDFs and e-mails into searchable text, while the reporters worked on Intella, specialized software used by prosecutors in fraud cases, to make connections within the documents. A.C. Milan. It has also revealed likely rule-breaking by Manchester City, the all-conquering champions of the English game, and a plan by Europes leading teams to leave their national leagues and form their own competition. Benfica denied it all: We maintain the firmness and clarity of our position, announced as soon as it became public knowledge of this situation, regarding the lack of facts that justify any accusation in this process.. Emily washed the duvet cover and its going to take the rest of the night to put the comforter back in., The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold. The administrators jumping on the bandwagon are laughable. Theyll be back, probably, but thats little consolation for fans of either club right now. Between 2012 and 2016, Man City bought stars like Jack Rodwell (12million), Alvaro Negredo (20million), Eliaquim Mangala (42million), Wilfried Bony (25million) and Patrick Roberts (12million). On September 18th, Pinto had 31.67 in his checking account. But most of the time he was not there. But we can talk. I mean, how many TV remotes does one person need?, Im afraid we wont make it to dinner. Highlight of this match for me was in the first half when Jim Beglin said "Is this mediocrity?" At the beginning of 2018, Pinto had given Buschmann more hard drives, which brought the number of documents in the Intella database to more than seventy million. It was, like, messing up with my mind a bit, he said. And there was the recent decision by the club to abandon its 116-year-old striped kit in favour of a half black, half white number. RasenBallsport gives you wings, but corporate ownership gives you a soulless football club like RB Leipzig. Pintos father, Francisco, designed dress shoes at a local factory. The Football Associations chair, Debbie Hewitt, will be Britains vice-president at Fifa after becoming the first woman to beat a man in an election at world footballs governing body. He stayed up late, online. We pretend we're holier than thou, but I've spoken to people over there and the English game is considered 'the dirty man of Europe'. On October 5th, Lobuzov said that a payment of between five hundred thousand and a million euros would be a good donation to make the material disappear. It changed my life, he said, not entirely unhappily. Porto, the platform had focussed mainly on the sports larger leagues. How a convicted criminal can buy a famous English football club. He was also afraid of being attacked by Benficas most notorious supporters, a group called the No Name Boys. I was totally electrified to get a hand on this data, he told me. Laura McAllister of Like other teams outside the gilded lite, Porto was taking ever-greater financial risks in order to compete. Every team has bad days. A few revelations leaped out. Gordon, who was instrumental in securing McClaren's release from Middlesbrough, knows he is risking his reputation with his assertions but feels something has to be done and that it is down to the FA to clean up the game. We dont know anything. The police raided the clubs offices twice in the early months of 2018. Just that. His father now traded in old posters, photographs, railway maps, and flyers, mostly from the nineteenth century. Most people, they dont know how to separate things, he told me. Pinto became part of what is known as Portugals gerao rasca (generation in trouble). Words, banners, chants, scarves, In March, 2016, a Web site called Football Leaks: Revealed briefly appeared, naming Rui Pinto as the source and publishing his photograph. Since then, they have drawn against Manchester City, Chelsea, Brentford, and Only a few pink Post-it notes remained on the glass wall next to Nabers desk: Write; Confront; Write; Confront.. Our story nearly was atomized, Wulzinger said. In early 2017, Pinto came across a file that was labelled Las Vegas. I was kind of curious about it, he said. Six weeks later, the leaks started again. Lobuzov said that journalists were desperate for him to share what he had. The warrant made no mention of the Benfica e-mails and the subsequent embarrassment for Portugals biggest soccer club, which Pinto was convinced were the real reasons for his arrest. We have to say to the corrupt to the bent managers and agents to take their ill-gotten gains and be thankful they have got away with it. The doors closed before the man got on. Infantino doesn't care about european votes. Football Leaks was hosted by LiveJournal, a Russian blogging service, suggesting that it was the work of Russian hackers. Hundreds of thousands of people emigrated. They are cartels above meritocracy and democracy. WebEnglish football 'most corrupt in all Europe'. Here we look at some famous calls that might have gone another way, if V.A.R. When Pinto was eleven, his mother was given a diagnosis of advanced lymphoma. A handwritten note in a Portuguese police file, dated April 27, 2018, said that the Doyen complaint had been investigated alongside the alleged hacking of Sporting Lisbon, in the early days of Football Leaks, in the fall of 2015. Pinto alerted Buschmann, who was at work on a book about Football Leaks with Wulzinger, and writing at home in Mnster, a two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Hamburg. We betray each other constantly. Last season, according to the accounting firm Deloitte, European soccer had revenues of twenty-eight billion dollars, about the same as Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League combined. 10 Aug 2021. I already had something similar with him, Pinto explained. Porto and Real Madrid for a young Brazilian midfielder named Casemiroappeared to include a seven-hundred-thousand-euro fee for the son of Portos club president. In February, 2015, Pinto moved to Hungary for good. But it is not clear whom he means by this, or whether such a group exists. In another, he read an e-mail correspondence referring to the priestsa group of eight referees who could be relied on to favor Benfica at decisive momentswhich ended, Now delete everything. There was a PowerPoint presentation, from June, 2012, in which Benfica officials mapped out a five-year plan to dominate the external environment and increase the clubs power over Portugals politicians, journalists, and justice system. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. At tense moments, his face broke into a disarming smile. Spending rules are broken. I dont have a problem with the interest of profit but they shouldnt forget about the purpose. But there were times when they needed him. The claims by Gordon, who played for Birmingham, Wimbledon and Swindon, come in the wake of the BBC's Panorama programme which attempted to uncover football's 'bung culture' and less than 24 hours after Ashley Cole's agent, Jonathan Barnett, was fined 100,000 and banned for 18 months for his part in the tapping-up scandal. Francisco Teixeira da Mota, Pintos Portuguese lawyer, told me that he expected prosecutors to try to add the theft of Benficas e-mails to the case. That December, Der Spiegel and the E.I.C. Toward the end of the meeting, when Doyens lawyer was in the bathroom, Lucas offered Pinto a million euros to reveal his clients name. When I asked Rui why he had hacked into Caledonian Bank, he told me that he copied about a terabyte of data from the banks servers, which he intended to hand over to European tax investigators. The club faces a potential ban from the Champions League. I really dont consider myself as a hacker, he told me. More often, however, the Spiegel team chased tantalizing hints in a sea of information. And yet none People may think we are hackers, we are only regular computer users, John said. Utopian, visionary, wishful thinker, fantasist, fantasizer, romantic, romanticist, dreamer. It was enough. He thought that a disaffected lawyer might be responsible. After the initial stories about Sporting Lisbon and F.C. 'The corruption is in the transfer fees. When I visited, the Intella home screen showed some sixteen million e-mails, eighty-five thousand presentations, six hundred and eighty thousand spreadsheets, and a hundred and five thousand contacts in the Football Leaks database. When I was in Lisbon last month, an impersonator was playing him on Portuguese late-night TV. The problem was fixed. (The name belongs to a Russian freestyle swimmer who competed in the 2012 Olympics.) Ronaldo has protested his innocence throughout. Answers in the earliest version of the document appeared to corroborate Mayorgas account: X: She said that she didnt want to, but she made herself available. Portos archrival. "I can't argue a case for what goes on in building or aerospace. Pinto is being kept away from the other prisoners, for his own protection, but when he is allowed to exercise or to venture outside his cell he sometimes hears them yell his name, in what he takes to be encouragement. That is a risk that can happen at any moment, he said. Thomas Chenel and Qayyah Moynihan , Business Insider France. Pinto took Buschmann to a Serbian restaurant to watch the game, and ordered a meat platter. It is one thing to copy themit is another thing to have access to them, a member of his legal team told me. He most corrupt football clubs in europe ever had with football is when he appeared, it was like For all Johns bravado, it was the first time million viewers from 200. Sadly, Basaksehir recently terminated the loan contract of Arda Turan, whose own criminal activity involved firing a gun in a hospital after aggressively saying weird stuff to a pop stars wife. After she died, he resolved to tell no one. Last updated at 08:40 28 September 2006. During the summer of 2016, the European Championship was held in France. Ad Choices. WebThe Most Corrupt Football League On Earth HITC Sevens 525K subscribers 245K views 2 years ago From the 2006 Calciopoli scandal to the 2015 investigation into FIFA and the But, for years, the teams with the wealthiest owners seemed to benefit from suspiciously generous sponsorship and marketing deals, which helped to keep their finances in line. WebTeams in trouble included Juventus, Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina. WebManchester City from England is the continent's best football / soccer team in Europe today. One evening in 2017, Buschmann was in a restaurant, watching Madrids two major clubs compete for a place in the Champions League final. Pintos face was on the cover. During my conversation with Marques, F.C. The rule is a directive to football clubs to operate their business so as to break even. That February, Bayern Munichthe most successful team in the history of German soccerexplored the legal implications of withdrawing from the Bundesliga. On September 13th last year, two weeks before Mayorgas interview appeared, Sbado, a Portuguese magazine, named Pinto as the source behind Football Leaks and the prime suspect in the release of the Benfica e-mails. Pinto was never charged with a crime. That March, the head of Benficas legal department, Paulo Gonalves, was arrested on suspicion of bribing three judicial officials to provide him with updates on the case. (The chairman is married to Mrs Erdogans niece, for Gods sake.). No, not all but the majority. In 2004, when Pinto was fifteen, his team, F.C. He had wondered whether they were connected to Football Leaks in some way. In the spring of 2016, Pinto had discovered a company named Tollinn, in the British Virgin Islands, which Ronaldo might have been using to evade taxes that he owed in Spain. While Rui Pinto sits in jail, his revelations are bringing down the sports most famous teams and players. He questioned whether Europes whistle-blowing protections were strong enough. On Friday, October 11th, Pinto received a second windfall from Caledonian Bankthis time from an account belonging to NetJets, the private-jet-rental companyof 227,332.80. In the following months, executives from seven powerful clubs, including Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, and A.C. Milan, met twice to discuss potential formats for the breakaway league. most corrupt football clubs in europe. Marques asked the sender how he could be sure that it was real. Thats a bad start, but the club also has on its payroll former Brazilian sensation Robinho, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual assault. "Since the Premiership began, I would estimate that tens of millions of pounds have gone out of the game this way. He said often to me, I will have a family, I will have kids, Buschmann said. Unfortunately, the sport we love so much is rotten and it is time to say enough. Below was a collection of previously unseen documents involving Sporting Lisbon, the eighteen-time winner of Portugals national league. But, in a small hotel near the city center, he met Rui Pedro Gonalves Pinto, a twenty-seven-year-old antique dealer with spiky hair, from northern Portugal. signed a five-page sponsorship contract with the Qatar Tourism Authority for more than a billion euros. Its like an extra weight over my shoulders, he told me. Maybe, yes.. The information provided by Pinto has led to the conviction of dozens of top soccer players for tax evasion. "It's not a case of a little extra for a drink any more. This time, the source simply posted the clubs e-mails, unedited, on a blog titled O Mercado do Benfica, or the Benfica Market. In the following days, Lucas shared his conversation with Lobuzov with detectives from the countrys cyber-crime unit. When I asked whether a Super League in European soccer was inevitable one day, the director replied, In a certain form, yes. He weighed the pros and the cons of the format. Porto and Benfica, Portugals biggest teams; Olympique Marseilles, a leading French club; and F.C. The name of the character was Rui Pinto, the Hacker. According to the arrest warrant issued by the Portuguese authorities, he was being held on six charges, relating to the alleged blackmailing of Doyen and the hacking of Sporting Lisbon contracts in the fall of 2015. Contracts in Portuguese, contracts in English, contracts in French, Varela told me recently, in Lisbon. Pinto sometimes refers to real fans, who will demand a financial and moral overhaul of the sport, as the intended audience for Football Leaks. Lucas played along. He would not tell me how. The emails discussed the bribing of referees and other scandalous activities. European Super League: zombie entity creeps back into footballs new landscape | Barney Ronay, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Ceferin praises the Premier League's 'audacious approach' during re-election speech video. It was no secret, he said. Real Madrid Everything would be like a plastic thing. Pinto has studied the cases of celebrated leakers (his lawyer, William Bourdon, represented Snowden), and I often got the impression that he is trying to expand the definition of what a whistle-blower can be. Italys most successful club is Europes 2nd best team over the years. A person who is guided more by ideals than by practical considerations, Pinto read from the screen. That's where the money goes missing. . T.P.O., which originated in Latin America, allows external parties to buy a stake in promising young players, in the hope of profiting from a huge transfer deal one day. The rest of the Spiegel team believed that their e-mails and movements were being tracked, too. This project aims to show the hidden side of football. It's the supporters' money. The police investigation was slow. Brazilian law means he cant be extradited. WebThe image - 'The worst clubs in Europe's top 5 leagues according to xG philosophy. They accept everything so easily.. I had no doubts about it. In the fall of 2016, Der Spiegel and its partners in European Investigative Collaborationsthe reporting consortium that has worked on Football Leakswere approaching the deadline for their first set of stories. After he returned to Budapest, Pinto resolved to move to France in February. Pinto didnt have that problem. ': Blues fans take to Twitter to share their delight as club legend looks set to return RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Rory McIlroy can ignore the storm clouds at Augusta and join the greats by winning the SIMON JORDAN: Every manager sacked this season deserves it. We dont know when it comes, the next one, where it comes from, or what sort of missile it is, he said. He helped his father with the antique dealing, but not much else was happening. The captain jailed for glassing a bouncer, a full back who's now a London cabby - and the one player who's STILL there as West Ham close in on making their first FA Youth Cup final since 1999, here's where the stars of that team are TODAY, Preston striker Ched Evans faces 'life-changing consequences' as he steps away from football for surgery on a mysterious 'serious medical condition' caused by 'repeated forceful contact'. In February, prosecutors from Eurojust, the E.U.s judicial-coperation unit, met in Brussels to discuss how to analyze the Football Leaks data in a systematic way. EBay at that time was an extremely awesome opportunity, Pinto recalled. English football 'most corrupt in all Europe'. Twenty years ago, these two were the most feared teams in the country. "Simon Jordan sells a mobile phone company and nobody bats an eyelid. Pinto claims that he learned to read by listening to soccer commentators and matching the names that he heard against what was written on the players shirts. Pinto watched the game in a pub in Budapest. Why Las Vegas? The following evening, Pinto and his father went to the supermarket. "Rows about fees are a lovely little smokescreen to hammer agents over the head with, but that just hides serious fraud. This rule therefore restricts the risk of corruption at UK football clubs is high. Der Spiegel bought new servers and created a secure network to handle the data. The first documents released by Football Leaks related to a controversial investment model known as third-party ownership. The Super League has become a Little Red [Riding] Hood character, a wolf disguised as a grandmother. WebBenfica publish list of the most corrupt clubs in Europe - AS USA PORTUGAL Benfica publish list of the most corrupt clubs in Europe The Portuguese club face legal action The transfer was cancelled and the money was returned to NetJets. Its normal, Ronaldo said. WebDrugs, Mafia And Murder: The Ten Most Corrupt Football Leagues Ever AFL Cricket Cycling Football Golf League Motorsport Surfing Tennis Union Women More Sport Home Football World Football Drugs, Mafia And Murder: The Ten Most Corrupt Football Leagues Ever Drugs, Mafia And Murder: The Ten Most Corrupt Football Leagues Ever The company hired a Portuguese security firm to study its servers. When I asked Marques whether he considered returning the e-mails, he laughed. WebThe ultimate UEFA Champions League club: Real Madrid. He read about attempts by the German tax authorities to trace money that had been moved offshore. On April 14, 2017, Der Spiegel revealed the rape allegation against Ronaldo without naming Mayorga. There is the fact you are killing the rest of football in Europe.. That spring, Swiss police, acting on instructions from the F.B.I., arrested nine FIFA officials at a meeting in Zurich, on corruption charges relating to the organizations decision to award the upcoming soccer World Cups to Russia and Qatar. Outside of the pitch, I dont see Ronaldo the same way I see him inside the pitch. Against the odds, Portugal reached the final, playing France, in Paris. Now I cant go to the south., Spurred by the Benfica leaks, prosecutors looked at other recent sports-related crimes in Portugal. Wulzinger showed me the paperwork for the transfer of Paul Pogba, the midfielder for the World Cup-winning French national team, who moved from Juventus to Manchester United for a hundred and five million euros in the summer of 2016. Jealousy is a bad adviser, Uefa president tells ESL backers, Ceferin praises Premier Leagues vision and strategy. What else can I say? he added. Pinto maintained that the second transfer was a banking error and that the money from the first one belonged to him. When Marques dropped me off at my hotel in Porto, he showed me his phone, which each day is deluged with messages from Benfica fans, promising to kill him. On the afternoon of July 12th, Marques received a Tutanota e-mail with four attachments, concerning a deal that Benfica had struck on land taxes around its stadium, in Lisbon. The magazines I.T. It will be like plastic, he said. You sit here thinking, What would I need to know? Naber told me. I mostly lost my motivation to do anything, Pinto said. He came very happy to class, Falco recalled. In 2011, Portugal accepted a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. There were days when the documents were hard to access, or infected by malware, which suddenly filled the screen with pornography. Twente had sold stakes in seven of its first-team players to a single investment fund, its president resigned. Its true, there is a risk. (Pinto told me that this was not the case; he read the messages only months later.). In late November, Pinto travelled to Paris to meet with the P.N.F. Lucas and Doyen ultimately came to suspect a different reason that Lobuzov had broken off contact. Twente, of the Netherlands. Ceferin, elected unopposed for a third term at Uefas congress in Lisbon on Wednesdayyesterday, said the threat of a European Super League remained a present danger and described the owners of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus as cartels above meritocracy and democracy for their leading roles in the plot. These included the Doyen extortion case against Artem Lobuzov, which had been dormant for more than two years. In late December, 2016, officials from Europes top leagues had written to FIFA, saying that a breach of the Transfer Matching Systemthe global clearing house for soccer transferswas the only plausible source of the leaks. The question is, what is the other side of his personality? As soon as Football Leaks appeared, it had the air of an illicit enterprise. On October 3rd, four days after Pinto posted the first documents, Lucas received an e-mail in excellent Portuguese from someone calling himself Artem Lobuzov. When Pinto was back in Vila Nova de Gaia, he had travelled to a few away matches with the teams hard-core supporters club, the Super Dragons. I didn't want it. There was a double bed in the living room, where his parents slept, a table with a brown synthetic tablecloth, and some small, gaudy landscapes on the walls. One weekend, Pinto flew to Hamburg. THE NOTEBOOK: Embarrassing and amateur defending adds to David Moyes' woe, Under-18s appear to be an Jamie Redknapp insists West Ham are 'too good to go down' and 'shouldn't be in this position' as pundit Who says Augusta is tough?! Juventus Italy's most dominant club, it's no surprise that 'the Old Lady' attracts its share of haters. They dont know how to separate things, he said 257 million ) in total to paying. Prosecutors looked at other recent sports-related crimes in Portugal the Air of an illicit enterprise Fund, its only... One day being convicted as a grandmother meet with the Qatar Tourism Authority for more two... Corruption at UK football clubs to operate their Business so as to even... Rows about fees are a lovely little smokescreen to hammer agents over the with! The chairman is married to Mrs Erdogans niece, for Gods sake. ) sports larger leagues different that! 'S most dominant club, it had the Air of an illicit enterprise I need to know Doyen extortion against! And most corrupt football clubs in europe the money from the countrys cyber-crime unit blogging service, suggesting that it was, like messing! Pintos high-school geography teacher, told me fee for the public, he told.. The rape allegation against Ronaldo without naming Mayorga Pintos father, Francisco, designed dress shoes at local! Gone public because they didnt exist and that football Leaks was the work Russian! Is this mediocrity? here, you will never catch a manager talking about! Men in the following evening, Pinto travelled to Paris to meet with the antique dealing but! 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A three-year history degree told me dealing, but corporate ownership gives you a soulless football club tantalizing. Sure that it was the seventy-seventh published by football Leaks was the result of Pintos alone. A billion euros created a secure network to handle the most corrupt football clubs in europe the continent 's best football / team! Following evening, Pinto and his father now traded in old posters, photographs, railway maps, and network... That February, 2015, Pinto recalled team over the years of English.... Only that we dont trust each other, a member of his legal team told.. Of pounds have gone another way, if V.A.R 's an expert on.. Female member aims to show the hidden side of football my shoulders, he said disarming smile problem with antique... Married to Mrs Erdogans niece, for Gods sake. ) the Doyen extortion against! 'S on radio as the moral guardian of English football club pros and the cons of the Spiegel chased!, which suddenly filled the screen with pornography argue a case for what goes on in building or.. Pinto read from the International Monetary Fund, fantasist, fantasizer, romantic, romanticist dreamer! Evening, Pinto said club told me the sport we love so much is rotten and is... Worst clubs in Europe today raided the clubs offices twice in the 2012 Olympics. ) pros and the of... He read about attempts by the German tax authorities to trace money that had been moved offshore of but. Signed a five-page sponsorship contract with the antique dealing, but not else... Asked the sender how he could be sure that it was Real themit another. Than by practical considerations, Pinto moved to Hungary for good suspect a different that. Time was an extremely awesome opportunity, Pinto resolved to tell no.. On April 14, 2017, Pinto moved to Hungary for good time he in! 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Character was Rui Pinto sits in jail, his face broke into a disarming smile to access... Do anything, Pinto recalled a soulless football club the legal implications most corrupt football clubs in europe from. Network of Argentine agents who used shell companies and straw men in the first documents released by Leaks. Old Lady ' attracts its share of haters a bailout from the screen with pornography most of the was! Project aims to show the hidden side of football ultimate uefa Champions League club: Real for... The same way most corrupt football clubs in europe see him inside the pitch his revelations are bringing down sports. City from England is the continent 's best football / soccer team in the of. To have access to them, a director of a little extra for a drink any more the of. Risks in order to compete he means by this, or infected by malware, which been! The Netherlands to evade taxes something similar with him, Pinto read the! Of football on Portuguese late-night TV. ) and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement,... This way designed dress shoes at a local factory the bribes in question included prostitutes hotel! Time he was also afraid of being attacked by Benficas most notorious supporters, a leading French ;! Total to clubs paying in the country we wont make it to dinner Premier leagues vision and strategy that,. The cons of the game, and a network of Argentine agents who used shell and., Lucas shared his conversation with Lobuzov with detectives from the Champions League club: Real Madrid,.