The Italian weekly magazine L’Espresso published this investigative article in yesterday’s edition. With permission from investigative journalist Vittorio Malagutti, we present this translated version.
Companies linked to Paolo Barelli, who has dominated Italian swimming for twenty years, have secured contracts with the Italian Swimming Federation (FIN). The federation has also placed directors from two companies controlled by this powerful sports manager and Forza Italia deputy on its payroll.
L’Espresso Investigates: Paolo Barelli’s Business Network in Italian Swimming
Swimming World
The Italian weekly magazine L’Espresso published this investigative article in yesterday’s edition. With permission from investigative journalist Vittorio Malagutti, we present this translated version.
Companies linked to Paolo Barelli, who has dominated Italian swimming for twenty years, have secured contracts with the Italian Swimming Federation (FIN). The federation has also placed directors from two companies controlled by this powerful sports manager and Forza Italia deputy on its payroll.
The Swimming Kingdom
For two decades, Italian swimming has been ruled by one man: Paolo Barelli, a Berlusconi loyalist, three-term senator, and current Forza Italia member. Since his 2000 election as FIN president, Barelli has overseen all Italian water sports.
These have been remarkable years, filled with Olympic and world victories thanks to champions like Federica Pellegrini and Gregorio Peltrinieri. Such successes aren’t measured merely in medals—sports glory drives the multimillion-euro carousel of sponsors and television deals. This explains Barelli’s reputation as sport’s King Midas—a hyperactive, presidentialist manager collecting positions and power, including the highest position in LEN (European Swimming League).
However, in recent months, the 66-year-old who has spent his life between swimming pools and politics—first as an athlete, then as a sports and parliamentary figure—has found himself swimming against the current, dogged by troubling revelations about contracts and consultancies, with money flowing from LEN to companies suspiciously close to him.
The Complaint and Quick Dismissal
The case opened and closed within days. On January 25, LEN’s leadership secretly dismissed a detailed complaint filed just one week earlier by Bartolo Consolo, the Italian executive who led LEN from 1990 to 2008 and now serves as its honorary lifetime president. When three international newspapers (Germany’s FAZ, England’s Sunday Times, and Australia’s Sunday Telegraph) publicized the matter in early May, LEN headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland promptly dismissed the accusations against its president as “baseless.”
Barelli, when questioned by L’Espresso, confirmed this position, explaining: “There has been an internal audit and LEN has taken note of the investigation’s assessments.”
An Ongoing Investigation
However, this story appears far from over. Not only has the hastily shelved LEN file recently landed on the desk of FIN’s federal prosecutor, Roman lawyer Alessandro Sammarco, who must now decide whether to open an investigation into the president, but L’Espresso has discovered a network of relatives, friends, and trustees orbiting Barelli—names partially matching those in the recently dismissed report.
Internal FIN documents and corporate accounts reveal a lengthy business trail extending to Florida and back to Italy. Procurement contracts, sponsorships, and consultancies form a carousel that has rewarded a fortunate few with close ties to the great chief of national swimming—a money machine with approximately 180,000 members and revenues exceeding €40 million, a third of which comes from public contributions through CONI (Italian National Olympic Committee). Among Olympic sports, only football receives more substantial state funding than FIN.
The Eurozone Connection
The complex story spans several years. It begins with Eurozone, a tiny Perugia-based company. On October 3, 2016, the FIN board chaired by Barelli approved a contract assigning this Umbrian company responsibility for seeking new sponsorships and managing supplier relationships. The contract was worth €35,000 annually, plus potential commissions from agreements with new commercial partners.
A year later, as revealed in the LEN complaint documents, Eurozone collected €20,000 as compensation “for commercial assistance” in a sponsorship contract for Barelli-led LEN. This represented an impressive start for a limited liability company established only in March 2015 with paid-up capital of just €2,500.
The shareholder register alone doesn’t reveal who controls Eurozone. Nearly all capital (97 percent) belongs to Prime International Consulting, based in Miami, Florida. This American entity is represented by Italian Mattia Fella, whom Barelli describes as “a good person to whom we have entrusted marginal assignments.” But the connections run deeper.
In 2018, Cristina Fella, daughter of Eurozone’s patron, was hired by FIN after an unpaid internship. Moreover, L’Espresso verified that a close Barelli collaborator, Giuseppe Leoni, comes from Fella’s circle of friends and associates. Leoni was on FIN’s payroll with a consultancy contract that expired days ago on June 30th. In 2011, Leoni created a Miami property service company called Miami Global Service—with Fella as his partner.
Leoni now serves as sole administrator of a small Roman company, Punto Sport—90 percent controlled by Barelli. The remaining 10 percent belongs to Antonio De Pascale, a Federal Councilor of FIN. Punto Sport operates an established sports center in Rome’s Portuense district called Villa Bonelli, featuring a swimming pool and gym not far from the Aurelia facility, the historic Capitoline swimming club founded by Barelli in the 1980s.
Fella’s Controversial Past
Fella’s name had already appeared in newspapers years before surfacing in FIN documents. A travel sector entrepreneur and former owner of Visetur agency (which went bankrupt in 2011), Fella moved casually among Rome’s corridors of power fifteen years ago—until 2008, when he was caught in an investigation by the capital’s prosecutor’s office regarding alleged illegal financing to then-Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio.
Six years later, in 2014, the indictment claimed Fella had provided Pecoraro Scanio with helicopter travels, luxury hotel stays, and holidays. The proceeding ultimately ended without conviction or acquittal, dismissed due to the statute of limitations.
Meanwhile, Fella had established himself in Florida, launching real estate ventures while maintaining connections to Italy. In Rome, his relationship with Barelli strengthened in recent years. A September 2016 FIN Federal Council report described Fella as “a professional operator specialized in sports sponsorship intermediation.” Based on this presentation, FIN’s leadership authorized President Barelli to establish a collaboration contract with Fella or his designated company for “the search for new business partners.” Within weeks, the agreement with Eurozone was signed in October 2016.
A year later, public company Terna, listed on the stock exchange, financed several national swimming youth team events with €70,000, with Fella’s company receiving a 20 percent commission (€14,000).
The Lavish Galas
Swimming success requires celebration. In 2017, Italian athletes broke the record for medals won in a single World Cup edition. On September 23, at Rome’s “Spazio Novecento,” the “Gala dei Campioni Azzurri Meravigliosi” honored this achievement with 600 guests enjoying dinner, toasts, music, and dancing—an even more extravagant version of events held in previous years.
Who organized this memorable evening featuring national team champions? Fella’s Eurozone, apparently demonstrating expertise in party planning. The FIN Federal Council resolved on September 18, 2017, to entrust the event organization to Eurozone, described as a “specialized agency,” at a cost of €70,000. This pattern continued for the next two years, with FIN renewing Eurozone’s mandate at increasing costs: €76,000 for 650 guests in 2018 and €83,000 for 550 guests in 2019.
The business grew, but Eurozone’s financial transparency did not. Its most recent financial statements available for consultation date back to 2016 and were filed with the chamber of commerce only in November 2019. Documents for the following three years remain missing—yet Barelli and his collaborators apparently raised no questions about a supplier failing to publish legally required financial statements.
CIR-AUR and Elevan
Another name emerging from LEN-examined documents is CIR-AUR, 80% owned by Barelli with De Pascale (the same Federal Councilor who partners with Barelli in Punto Sport) holding the remainder. Between 2014 and 2016, CIR-AUR (Construction Immobiliari Romane Aurelia) issued invoices to LEN for approximately €70,000. Since Barelli already led the Continental Federation during this period, he effectively authorized payments to himself. Additionally, CIR-AUR’s sole director is 83-year-old Franco Concordia—the same Concordia who serves as a FIN consultant in 2020 under a contract signed by Barelli as federal president.
LEN similarly dismissed suspicions regarding another Roman company, Elevan, headed by Andrea Polimeno, an insurance agent with longstanding excellent relations with Barelli. Payments of about €48,000 reportedly compensated assistance with LEN’s sponsorship contract with Italian insurance group Unipol Sai, worth €850,000 for 2016-2022. Elevan allegedly also consulted on television rights negotiations for swimming competitions, though it remains unclear whether the company actually collected agreed commissions.
Last January, LEN’s Council declared after its brief investigation that everything complied with regulations. Questions remain about Polimeno’s dual role as owner of Assieur consulting in Rome, one of Unipol group’s most important national agencies. Elevan’s owner received compensation from LEN as a sponsorship consultant while simultaneously dealing with an insurance group to which he maintains close business ties. For many years, Assieur has maintained an exclusive relationship with FIN, managing all FIN member policies under the Unipol brand—the same agency that appeared on the continental federation’s payroll with Barelli’s approval.
