It’s a tragedy that the Premier League needs a hacker convicted of extortion to hold Man City to account

Almost everyone is happy that Manchester City finally has to face these 115 charges from the Premier League.

Last week, the senior executive at law firm Blackstone, whose highly paid KC Lord Pannick is leading the club’s case, gave the club a thumbs up outside London’s International Dispute Resolution Centre. And yes, Pep Guardiola is right – many clubs are drooling at the thought of City losing. Printed in black and white in the 93-page report of City’s last court hearing is the list of nine clubs who have called for the club not to be granted a stay of execution if convicted: Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, Tottenham and Wolves.

But it’s hard to share that glee when you look at the person whose evidence is at the heart of the Premier League’s argument, a contradictory and far from convincing authority. Rui Pinto – the computer whiz who hacked the emails that have led to City being accused of receiving at least £200 million from Abu Dhabi disguised as sponsorship money – portrays himself and his work as a selfless service to football transparency.

When he first spoke to the outside world about the hacked documents that exposed football’s dirty little secrets – Cristiano Ronaldo’s tax avoidance, Mino Raiola’s £41m involvement in Paul Pogba’s transfer back to Manchester United – he did indeed seem to fit the Robin Hood profile. When I first wrote about him in 2018, he lived in shabby flats in Hungary, consumed little more than lemonade and chocolate cake, and was known simply as “John” – a common pseudonym of anonymous whistleblowers.

He had no aversion to occasionally dancing the night away in underground nightclubs. He once danced until 5am while watching the Real Madrid-Roma match in a Budapest bar. He said he was out all three days because he was afraid of being discovered by the people he had unmasked. Hungarian police told us he hung out in internet cafes and libraries and used public internet servers to hack incognito.

Lord Pannick KC (right) is leading the City’s case and has received much acclaim for his role

Rui Pinto is the computer whiz who hacked the emails that have now left City facing allegations of receiving at least £200 million from Abu Dhabi disguised as sponsorship money.

But as his identity was revealed and he was investigated, another side of the story emerged. One of the companies whose documents his Football Leaks website had hacked was Doyen Sports, the agent of David Beckham, whose own agonising emails, in which he called the British Honours Committee a “bunch of wankers” for not knighting him, were duly made public.

Doyen’s chief executive received an email demanding money in return for no further compromising correspondence being published. A meeting was also said to have taken place at a motorway service station outside Lisbon in Pinto’s native Portugal. Last September, Pinto was given a four-year suspended sentence for attempting to extort between £500,000 and £1 million from Doyen – among other offences. His lawyer insisted he never carried out his blackmail threats.

Because he only communicates through his lawyer, he never had a chance to ask Pinto about the blackmail. Nor the fact that Yandex, Russia’s largest internet company, provided a server for Football Leaks when it looked like his account was about to be closed. All Yandex traffic is monitored by Russia’s FSB (formerly the KGB), and the email extorting Doyen’s money was sent from a Yandex account. Could one Russian-backed hacker really be enough to turn British football on its head? Quite possible, yes.

City has never acknowledged its six hacked emails and the single attachment that Pinto posted on Football Leaks. At the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), where the club successfully appealed a two-year ban from participating in the UEFA Champions League in 2020, the club described the emails as “criminally obtained documents” and insisted they should be deemed inadmissible.

But it is inconceivable that these documents – which are part of a staggering cache of 5.5 million emails that CAS says were stolen from City – are not at the heart of the Premier League case. CAS ruled that the public interest in holding Manchester City to account outweighed the risk that hacking could be legitimised by using such evidence. City produced original versions of the emails as part of its own defence, effectively legitimising them anyway.

City boss Pep Guardiola is right that many clubs are excited by the idea of ​​City losing

Pinto, who is from Portugal, communicates only through his lawyer William Bourdon (right)

But the fact that it took someone like Pinto to hold the era’s preeminent British club to account should not be a source of satisfaction. Rather, this case is a tragedy for football.

It is difficult to feel overwhelming sympathy for City. Two key witnesses who could have given full and frank explanations about the contents of the leaked emails, given the club’s absolute protestations of innocence, simply did not appear before a UEFA panel of inquiry examining City’s guilt on charges similar to those it now faces. No reason was given for their absence.

But when it came to appealing the UEFA ban to CAS, the same two men – City director and communications guru Simon Pearce and the club’s chief financial officer Andrew Widdowson – appeared via video conference and spoke at length. UEFA was astonished to find “a completely new case” presented by City at the start of the appeal.

City’s attempts to delay and prevent this case also know no bounds and they will certainly not be short of legal firepower over the next ten weeks in central London. Ten lawyers were present at the CAS hearing, compared to just three for UEFA. But that it took an individual like Pinto to hold the preeminent British club of this era to account should not bring satisfaction. Whatever the outcome, when a verdict is handed down next spring, the case is a tragedy for our football.

Please Sky, let football speak for itself?

A beautiful Match of the Day segment has emerged on Twitter this week, featuring the incomparable Barry Davies presenting a selection of goals to mark the show’s 25th anniversary in 1989.

“Some unparalleled moments from the stars of the show – the players,” says Davies in his humble style, setting up a montage that captures Best, Keegan, Brady, Hoddle, Fashanu and many others.

Are the players still the ‘stars of the show’ on TV? I’m not so sure. On Sunday, no fewer than six pundits covered the City v Arsenal game for Sky – Roy Keane, Theo Walcott, Paul Merson, fresh from the Strictly studio, and Micah Richards, with Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher on commentary.

Sky does a great job, but I’m not the only one who longs a little for the days of Davies, John Motson and Jimmy Hill.

When watching football on TV, you increasingly get the feeling that the players are no longer the stars

Fans have to chant disgusting chants

It has already started at Fulham. The jeers of “Al Fayed was a rapist” rang out from halfway through Newcastle United’s stadium as their club played at Craven Cottage on Saturday, even though the testimony of those women who alleged predatory behaviour, rape and sexual harassment against the former Fulham owner has not yet been fully heard.

Where were the fathers, brothers, uncles and sons in this contingent? Men big enough to tell the people who spouted such taunts that they were scum and didn’t belong on a traveling support base.

County Championship still beats the rest

The last rays of a wonderful summer of sport arrived for me at the very end. Two days in the sun last week at Old Trafford, where I watched Lancashire beat Somerset to keep hopes of avoiding relegation alive.

Rocky Flintoff of Lancashire takes on Archie Vaughan of Somerset, possibly for the first time since their respective schools met in Manchester.

I spent two wonderful days last week watching Lancashire play Somerset at Old Trafford

Vaughan’s first senior half-century. Every allotted over was bowled. Every session was exciting. On the final day, taking advantage of a 10-day flexi-membership in Lancashire was a real joy, despite Red Rose’s difficulties.

County Cricket Championship, overtaking England, Australia and another meaningless, lucrative ODI.