The business side of the sport, however, is more like a painting by Bruegel the Elder. You need thick skin to support these embarrassing teams. 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. Pinto grew up in a small, blue-tiled house on a hill in Vila Nova de Gaia, which faces Porto, Portugals second city, across the River Douro. The club state that the e-mail containing the Daily Mail's list was not of good enough quality to be broadcast. The best leagues are awash in Russian oligarchs, Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds, and Chinese conglomerates. Be cool. I really dont consider myself as a hacker, he told me. Plays. He drank a few beers. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Argentinas World Cup Victory. This is a war., Marques has a show on Portos TV channel, and in the weeks that followed he began to read the Benfica e-mails aloud on the air. Agnelli, who could face trial over allegations of false accounting at Juventus, was famously one of the architects of the failed attempt to set up the breakaway European Super League in 2021. Bond: It looks bad but I don't take bungs, Do not sell or share my personal information. Supporters of other clubs refer to Benfica as the Octopus and to the supposed shadowy nature of its influence in Portuguese society as Benfiquisto, or Benficastan. More often, however, the Spiegel team chased tantalizing hints in a sea of information. Again Ukraine shares scores with Uganda and the Comoros as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Get your Serie A news faster with our free app, donwnload it here: When he attempted to open it, the file installed malware, which forwarded the contents of Doyens London servers to a Russian e-mail address. Here's a look at seven of the most corrupt figures in football history. Each year, the finest players and coaches conjure, in new forms, soccers essential, unthinking grace. Pinto hired a lawyer, Anbal Pinto, who works out of a glass-walled office on the outskirts of town. Words, banners, chants, scarves, and in some cases just pointing out simple truths are enough. Our I.T. The corruption is in the transfer fees. The following day, he received a transfer of 34,627 from a client account at Caledonian Bank, a small private bank in the Cayman Islands. Posted by u/[deleted] 3 years ago. 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. Two days later, he paid a cell-phone bill of fifteen euros. To be able to comment you must be registered and logged in. published their first Football Leaks stories. SUBSCRIBE to EURO FOOTBALL DAILY: http://bit.ly/EUROFDsubscribe Chris & Pat go head to head in this weeks StatWars and find out who is the most corrupt club in history, the last Spanish. deals. I realized, O.K., they are coming for me, he said. Not just that, but according to Colin Gordon, English football is considered 'the dirty man of Europe'. He messaged Buschmann, This is the most important day of my life.. Pinto didnt have that problem. After he returned to Budapest, Pinto resolved to move to France in February. Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, and Uefa are working together to . He worked at night, combing through documents page by page. How football's volatile 48 hours unfolded The 12-team Super League, set up by the seven afore-mentioned teams and Spain's Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid and Italy's AC Milan and. Porto, seeking seventeen million euros in damages. But football and money are inextricably linked going back more than 100 years. But it is not clear whom he means by this, or whether such a group exists. One weekend, Pinto flew to Hamburg. Maybe she got some bruises when I grabbed her. At the time, Der Spiegel and the E.I.C. The first hard drives that Pinto gave to Buschmann contained around eighteen million files. Between clubs, its not only that we dont trust each other, a director of a top European club told me. Pinto came from nowhere and he opened the eyes of millions and millions of citizens., In Portugal, Pintos return was front-page news. Welcome to Football Leaks, it read, in Portuguese. England coach Steve McClaren's agent has turned up the heat in football's bung controversy . There were many dirty things, Marques told me. He read about attempts by the German tax authorities to trace money that had been moved offshore. People may think we are hackers, we are only regular computer users, John said. Arsenal investigate two 'disturbing incidents of anti-semitism' during Sunday's north London derby as fans overhear 'grossly offensive' chanting at both the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and a pub in Islington, Nottingham Forest 'are considering an ambitious move for PSG goalkeeper Keylor Navas' after Dean Henderson's injury with the three-time Champions League winner being lined up as the club's 25TH signing of the season, Mic'd up referees will announce their reasons behind VAR decisions to fans in stadiums and on TV at next month's Club World Cup with the Premier League's Anthony Taylor to be part of the trial by football's lawmakers, English kit manufacturer Rhino threaten LEGAL ACTION against organisers of the Rugby World Cup as the London-based brand raise concerns about the tournament's bidding process after losing out on their contract to Aramis, US investment firm Sixth Street - who have strong links with Real Madrid and Barcelona - DENY claims they want a stake in Manchester United after Britain's richest man Sir Jim Ratcliffe announced his intention to make a bid for the club, Lewis Hamilton is NOT part ofSir Jim Ratcliffe's bid to buy Manchester United despite their close friendship and the British F1 star - and lifelong Arsenal fan - seeking to get involved in ownership of sports teams, West Ham's loan enquiry for Harry Maguire is rejected by Manchester United - with Erik ten Hag adamant his captain still has a key role to play this season despite not being first-choice, Temporary concussion substitutes will NOT be trialled in the Premier League, as Sportsmail columnist Chris Sutton branded IFAB 'Buffoons' for rejecting the decision, Two-time Lions captain Sam Warburton backs 'phenomenal' head coach Steve Borthwick torejuvenate England and launch a Six Nations title bid with a pack 'thatthat can match anyone in world rugby', 'I don't know, Jeff! 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. He claimed that the organization had been given three hundred gigabytes of data by insiders, who were dismayed by soccers excesses, and that it was receiving more all the time. 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. Thomas Drage, a 24-year-old attacking midfielder at Troms (and one-time winner of the fantastically named Polar Bear of the Year award), said in a 2012 interview that players from the north are handicapped when it comes to international recognition as the domestic media tend to focus on southern clubs. Clubs and companies implicated in the first wave of Spiegel stories had mostly reacted with silence, or with fury that the information had come to light. When he appeared, led by two thickset Hungarian police officers, he looked like a student on a Eurail trip gone wrong. But, on a Tuesday afternoon that April, Francisco Marques, the communications director for F.C. Below are the 13 most cor 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. (The chairman is married to Mrs Erdogans niece, for Gods sake.). I already had something similar with him, Pinto explained. The last t The first blog was shut down by LiveJournal. Facebook and Instagram to get the latest updates on LSU Football and Recruiting. Kind regards, FL. That evening, confidential contracts related to the image rights of Cristiano Ronaldo, at that time the star forward for Real Madrid, appeared on the blog. These are, without question, the most embarrassing teams to support from Europe's top divisions. They want to be famous to say my name. On April 14, 2017, Der Spiegel revealed the rape allegation against Ronaldo without naming Mayorga. Marseille went on to win the Champions League but were ultimately stripped of their Ligue 1 title as a result of the scandal and were relegated due to financial irregularities. They suspected that something was going on, Pinto said. "You get Sports Minister Richard Caborn on TV ranting about corrupt agents and overpaid footballers. Money above all. He said often to me, I will have a family, I will have kids, Buschmann said. Classic Type in answers that . I mean, how many TV remotes does one person need?, Im afraid we wont make it to dinner. member states are almost always routine affairs. The hack raised the possibility that Lobuzov was able to read Doyens communications with the police in real time. Portos victory in the Champions League in 2004, Mourinho had left to manage Chelsea, a London club that the previous year had been bought by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Source: Fbref.com' was posted by Cristianoooooo on 18 January, 2023 .Click here to see the image on Troll Football - The best site for Football trolls, images, gifs, videos and more. Highlight of this match for me was in the first half when Jim Beglin said "Is this mediocrity?" This January, the highest fee spent by a non-Premier League club from a major league has been the signing of Cesar Montes by La Liga outfit Espanyol, who paid 8m to bring him in from Mexican side Monterrey - 1m less than the fee Chelsea paid Atletico to loan Joao Felix for five months. (France has some of the strongest whistle-blowing protections in Europe.) They decided to publish a list of the most corrupt clubs in Europe on the television show called "Pointed. Ad Choices. Both Juve and Milan are now greatly concentrated on moving back among Europe's elite. In early June, Marques handed the Benfica e-mails to the police. Rui is literally one in a million, Carreira da Silva, the sociologist, told me. 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. Thats probably got something to do with the 35 league titles, and also with memories of Alessandro Del Piero tearing up Serie A with top-corner curlers from the edge of the box. Giuseppe Signori, Mauro Bressan (scorer of an iconic bicycle in the Champions League for Fiorentina) and Cristiano Doni were the most famous names involved in the match fixing scandal that rocked Italian football in 2011, but the actions of lower league goalkeeper Marco Paoloni were shocking. Since 2018, the Spanish Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) has been investigating two football agents linked to one of the most relevant player representation agencies in Europe. I once asked Pinto whether he was an idealist, and he surprised me by seeming not to know the word. Unlike American sports, with their draft picks, salary caps, and collective-bargaining agreements, European soccer is a heedless, Darwinian affair. In the middle of January, 2019, Pintos father and his stepmother, Elizabeth, visited him. Rui Pinto.. Controlla la tua casella di posta, ti abbiamo inviato un'email per poter accedere direttamente al sito con il tuo account. The emails discussed the bribing of referees and other scandalous activities. On October 19th, the police raided Benficas Estdio da Luz, in northern Lisbon. Pinto unearthed multiple versions of a twenty-seven-page transcript of an apparent interview of Ronaldo, identified as X, conducted by a member of his legal team, Paulo Rendeiro, about the alleged attack. YOU. The data from the first transaction were garbled, but the second transfer appeared to have been executed at 5:46 A.M. on October 10th, from a computer-science lab at the University of Porto. Following the images on Benfica TV, Porto executives naturally did not take the matter lightly and released a response. Mixing with students from across Europe, Pinto gained a broader sense of the Continents economic crisis. Rui Pinto told me that he posed as Artem Lobuzov to check that the documents he was posting were real. Six weeks later, Buschmann flew to Budapest to meet him. Pinto watched the game in a pub in Budapest. But he never followed through. Yeah, he replied. What can a father do with a teen-ager who passes all the night with the computer? Falco said. In Portugal, too, interest in Football Leaks had fallen away. 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. The leading articles were about Ronaldos finances, Doyens aggressive T.P.O. Middlemen thrive. Contracts in Portuguese, contracts in English, contracts in French, Varela told me recently, in Lisbon. A confidential side letter identified Ms P as Kathryn Mayorga, a former model who was then working at an elementary school, and Mr D as Cristiano Ronaldo. Porto and Benfica, Portugals biggest teams; Olympique Marseilles, a leading French club; and F.C. Just that. His father now traded in old posters, photographs, railway maps, and flyers, mostly from the nineteenth century. THE CASE OF BRUCE GROBBELAAR Britain's Sun newspaper alleged that former Liverpool and Southampton goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar took 40,000 to make sure Liverpool lost 3-0 away to Newcastle in 1993. He is a cat, Bourdon murmured. (He had taken early retirement, to concentrate on antique dealing.) was Bruno de Carvalho, the president of Sporting Lisbon, who described it as a monster coming to football. FIFA, soccers global governing body, banned the practice in May, 2015. I learned everything sitting next to him. Pinto became fascinated by the Phoenicians, and by the Iberian and Celtic tribes that settled in Portugal before the Romans came. If he wanted it, he would probably be the best pupil from the class, but he was not.. 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. GestiFute, a Portuguese soccer agency that represents Ronaldo and Mourinho, and whose president, Jorge Mendes, is one of the most powerful figures in the game, dismissed the article as a piece of journalistic fiction. Ronaldo scored two goals in the first game against Munich and a hat trick in the second. I wanted basically to see the reaction, he said. This is article is brought to you by Geostorm, in cinemas this October. 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. I got shocked, Pinto told me. Benfica have found themselves in a mess that will surely see them wind up in court. The whole time it was rough, I turned her onto her side, and it was fast. Definitely not a guy you want to be your father-in-law!! 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. 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