Why are the FA and Premier League continuing to ignore incriminating Football Leaks revelations?

Authorities from all over the world have been in contact with Rui Pinto since he founded Football Leaks in 2015 and uncovered millions upon millions of documents highlighting shady, corrupt and illegal activity happening within football. He has, in effect, opened the closet door and not so much found the skeletons but discovered the whole closet is made from skulls and bones.

Pinto, who goes by the name John, claims to have met with French prosecutors and that his French lawyer, William Bourdon, has been in contact with Swiss and Belgian prosecutors. He says that the US authorities have approached him, regarding the Cristiano Ronaldo rape accusations Football Leaks revealed, which the Juventus forward denies. Pinto has received emails from tax authorities, including one from Germany. He says financial investigators in England tried to contact him early on but wanted to know his identity so he did not reply (he has since revealed his identity).

So you would imagine football’s governing bodies would be all over this, right? Teams of investigators trawling through the emails, contracts and presentations that Pinto has said repeatedly, most recently at the beginning of last month in an interview with Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, that he would gladly share. Apparently not. Nothing from Fifa. Nothing from Uefa. Nothing from the Football Association. Nothing from the Premier League.

Radio silence

So as it stands, we are instead drip-fed stories based on documents obtained by Football Leaks that are implicating some of the Premier League’s biggest clubs and leaving English football’s integrity in tatters.

Back in November, when the Premier League were first asked if it would look into the allegations that Chelsea made illegal payments to Andreas Christensen’s father, Sten, revealed by Football Leaks documents, a spokesman said it would if the organisation received “any substantiated material that indicates our rules may have been violated”. See, this is the thing about the bad guys – they tend not to hand over all of the incriminating evidence they have hidden away.

So the Premier League appears to have wiped its hands of it, leaving the FA, with whom it has an often-confusing overlap in who investigates what, to take a look.

Pick up the phone

So why have they not called Pinto? Or contacted his lawyer, who even has his own Wikipedia page? Or emailed the guys at Football Leaks? Their email address is on their website. They got back to i within 24 hours to confirm that they or “John” had heard nothing from football’s world and European governing bodies, nor those in England.

It can’t be a lack of resources and for the avoidance of doubt, in their accounts for the 2016-17 season, the FA had a turnover of £351million, a profit of £16m after tax and net assets of £146m. They hardly lack the financial muscle to take this on.

I checked with a senior associate at a law firm who specialise in sport to make sure that the FA, or any other governing body, were actually allowed to use the documents Football Leaks has obtained.

The argument against made by those who tend not to be coming off well in the leaks is that the documents were either hacked or stolen. In a court of law, I was told, a solicitor would think very carefully about the use of such evidence, but would not have to completely discount it. For a disciplinary body, such as the FA or Premier League, it’s even simpler: they can decide.

Overwhelming public interest

It seems a no-brainer. Although, for the sake of balance, Portuguese authorities are seeking Pinto’s extradition for suspected extortion, violation of secrecy and illegally accessing information, which he denies. He remains under house arrest in Budapest. To some he is a whistleblower, to others a criminal. Regardless, the public interest is overwhelming.

By November last year [2018], research had been conducted into 70 million Football Leaks documents in a cache of 3.4 terabytes of data. Pinto says they have 10 terabytes in total, so there is much more to come.

Manchester City are the most implicated club, thus far. They repeatedly deny any of the accusations, yet not once have they said the documents are fake, saying only: “We will not be providing any comment on out of context materials purported to have been hacked or stolen from City Football Group and Manchester City personnel and associated people. The attempt to damage the Club’s reputation is organized and clear.” There’s that hacked and stolen line.

Der Spiegel, who have led the way publishing stories based on the data, have revealed a dubious payment to Jadon Sancho’s agent – which the FA has confirmed it is investigating – a circumvention of Financial Fair Play and deception.

The FA is also looking at the allegations in Politiken, a Danish newspaper, that Chelsea made payments to Christensen’s father, as revealed by i last week.

Who knows how much more wrongdoing can be exposed by looking at the 70 million documents – certainly no one in football, who appear to be desperately looking in the other direction.