Former Sporting lawyer Pedro Solano Almeida said this Thursday he had no “Feeling of lasting invasion” with the discovery of external access to his email and valued Rui Pinto’s intervention in strengthening transparency in football.
In the only testimony in the afternoon at the 13th session of the ‘Football Leaks’ trial, Pedro Solano Almeida, who served in the club’s legal department between 2009 and 2015, even made a comparison between the mechanisms allegedly used by the creator of the platform to be able to disclose documents and the social effects of their publication, pointing out that “More positive than negative” in this process.
There was that feeling of distaste for the invasion, but I must confess that it was not very lasting. I revisited what I had in the email, I thought there was not much to hide and it was over. I didn’t lose any sleep ”, admitted the jurist, while reiterating that this conclusion came “Maybe on the same day” where he learned of the attack on the email system and why he would not have been a single, specific target.
In fact, Pedro Solano Almeida ensured that only two of the documents that were released in ‘Football Leaks’ were also in his email box, identifying the agreements with the Doyen investment fund for players Marcos Rojo and Labyad. And it was at the level of the exhibition of documents related to the participation of funds that the former “Leonino” lawyer most highlighted the performance of the platform creator.
Rui Pinto can be an unavoidable figure – if he is not already – in promoting transparency in sport, in a world that is complicated ”, he stated, stressing: “Rui Pinto’s intervention in the dissemination of information relevant to assist in the transparency of a world in which one of its characteristics is opacity seems very positive”.
Despite this, Pedro Solano Almeida acknowledged that the creator of the platform is not “a hero”, that he is “inseparable from the way he accessed this data” from the Alvalade club and that “a good act does not cancel a bad act”. However, he also emphasized that he was not aware that Rui Pinto “had disclosed uninteresting personal information” and that, “for some reason”, he decided not to press charges.
The hearing of the former Sporting lawyer was also marked by a moment of greater tension, namely with the legal representatives of Doyen and the Portuguese Bar Association, mainly related to the issue of the duty of professional secrecy to which he is obliged and which even led to Sporting’s legal representative to say that it was not Pedro Solano Almeida who was on trial there.
The breach of duty of secrecy was not mine. There was an access that is involuntary to me. There was no violation of professional secrecy because the violation was not made by me ”, asserted the former lawyer of the ‘lions’ and current deputy consul of Portugal in Luanda.
The trial will now continue next Tuesday with the hearing of more witnesses linked to Sporting at the time of the facts of the case, namely Jorge Jesus, former coach of the ‘lions’ and current coach of Benfica, in addition to the former leaders and coaches of Sporting Alexandre Godinho, Tiago Vieira, Paulo Henriques, Filipe Celikkaya, Manuel Fernandes and Tiago Fernandes. The testimony of Hungarian citizen Balint Bozó is also scheduled.
Rui Pinto, 31, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and was also what led to the pronunciation of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, “Due to your collaboration” with the Judiciary Police (PJ) and its “critical sense”, but for security reasons, it is part of the witness protection program in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
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