Swimming Lord of the Rings Dale Neuburger — Key Figure in the Transcontinental Alex Pussieldi Cover-Up

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by Irvin Muchnick

The image above is a capture from Brazil’s SporTV network (equivalent to our ESPN) of Dale Neuburger, treasurer of Swiss-based World Aquatics (AQUA), formerly called FINA — the global governance body of organized competitive swimming. Here Neuburger is shown at a medal podium ceremony this week at the World Aquatics Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

According to swimming sources in both Brazil and the U.S., Neuburger is a central figure in the globetrotting odyssey of Alex Pussieldi. He’s the Brazilian-Floridian who is credibly accused of having maintained a secret bathroom video system to peep on the young foreign swimmers from throughout Latin America whom he installed at his house in Fort Lauderdale while he was an assistant to the late Hall of Fame coach Jack Nelson (himself an accused sexual abuser) at the Fort Lauderdale Swim Team from 1999 to 2004. Pussieldi resigned following a hushed-up incident in which he battered, on the deck of the Hall of Fame complex pool rented by the team, a Mexican swimmer who had discovered the secret taping system and refused to take orders from the coach at a practice.

The swimming writer for the local Sun Sentinel newspaper, Sharon Robb, didn’t report the full details and also — in a breach of ethics typical of “swimming journalism” — counseled Pussieldi on how to wait things out and resume in other coaching jobs. And Pussieldi indeed found new and even more prestigious employment. He became the national team coach of Kuwait, he won multiple state championships at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, and his Nadadores club in Davie (co-owned by former Brazilian national team coach Tomas Victoria) garnered fawning coverage by a Miami Herald sports columnist, among others.

Florida swimming sources say Pussieldi’s career reset — or perhaps we should say this particular iteration of his multiple career resets — was boosted by local lawyer Norman Tripp, a founder of Alamo Rent a Car, whose kids swam on Nelson’s team and who was a fundraiser for the construction of the Hall of Fame complex. (Tripp died in 2021.)

Another swimming powerbroker who, according to these sources, served as a Pussieldi career fixer, especially for the Kuwaiti post? Dale Neuburger.

Neuburger has been on the USA Swimming board since 1990, and was its president from 1998 to 2002. He ran things there at the height of the organization’s sleazy offshore reinsurance subsidiary, the United States Sports Insurance Company, which would be dissolved in the mid-2010s and become one focus of a federal grand jury investigation of USA Swimming’s alleged insurance fraud and cover-ups of sexual abuse by coaches. Neuburger, during his term as USA Swimming president, additionally was eligible to serve as an ex officio board member of the captive insurance company in Barbados, but he testified that he designated a surrogate to take his place. During that period, so-called safety rebates from USSIC to USA Swimming — essentially, kickbacks of insurance premiums, some of which were alleged to have gone directly into the pocket of USA Swimming chief executive Chuck Wielgus — reached their peak, and USSIC’s assets grew to a total of more than $20 million.

Swimming sources say Neuburger also intervened to help Pussieldi following the 2004 pool deck episode in Fort Lauderdale. In addition to his other hats, Neuburger was a principal in the Indianapolis-headquartered U.S. division of the Swiss firm TSE Consulting.

(That company specialized in advocating for big events to be staged at client locales, and in a blatant conflict of interest, Neuburger took this objective to his work on the FINA board. The 2010 world open water championships were staged in the unsafely hot gulf waters off Fujiairah, United Arab Emirates — a Neuburger-TSE Consulting client. Swimmer Fran Crippen died at the event.)

Another of Neuburger’s hats was membership on the International Swimming Hall of Fame board, and according to our sources, he stepped in to help Tripp help Pussieldi, perhaps most directly with the Kuwaiti national team position.

Pussieldi “retired” from coaching in Florida in July 2013 — five months before USA Swimming’s regional affiliate, Florida Gold Coast Swimming, heavily fined him and partner Victoria and announced their “indefinite suspension” for hundreds of meet entry violations involving athletes from far-flung places whom he inserted into the roster of the Davie Nadadores. Concussion Inc. published the Florida Gold Coast ruling shortly after it was issued; it remains viewable at https://muchnick.net/pussieldisuspension.pdf.

Pussieldi returned to Brazil, but is believed to continue to reside part-time in Fort Lauderdale. Back in his native country, he is a controversial national and Latin American sport power player. He has announced a national clinic tour next year, which again puts young athletes in harm’s way of an accused abuser.

Despite the regional “indefinite suspension” and the massive evidence against Pussieldi (including in a 2004 USA Swimming investiigator’s report, viewable here), he was never nationally banned. In 2011 deposition testimony, however, Neuburger conceded the existence of a USA Swimming secret “flagged” list, and insiders believe Pussieldi is on it.

In the next post we will publish extensive excerpts of Neuburger’s testimony and upload the full deposition transcript. Neuburger was deposed in the “Jane Doe” case against USA Swimming over its responsibility for the serial monstrous abuses across many years and multiple states by coach Andy King, who by then was beginning to serve a lengthy term in California state prison.

Therein, Neuburger achieved levels of evasiveness surpassing those of even CEO Wielgus, who committed what can only be labeled unindicted perjury in the King matter, as well as in others. A 2014 petition by abuse survivors and their supporters forced the Hall of Fame to cancel Wielgus’s scheduled induction (though he kept his million-dollar-a-year job).

Wielgus died in disgrace in 2017. Neuburger, for his part, remains in power in international swimming in his late years – and a year ago this month was even named the recipient of the United States Olympic & Paralympiic Endowment’s George M. Steinbrenner III’s Sport Leadership Award.

COMPLETE SERIES TO DATE:

“Alex Pussieldi Update: Decade After Ouster in Florida, Peeping Tom and Multinational Trafficker Coach Remains a Powerful Figure in Brazilian Swimming,” October 27, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15882

“SwimSwam.com, Sport News Site, Adores ‘Journalist’ Alex Pussieldi — All-Time International Coaching Abuser, Now in His Third Act in Brazil,” October 29, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15895

“Alex Pussieldi — Swimming Coach Driven out of Florida after Allegations of Trafficking and Sexual Abuse — Announces a Tour of Clinics in Brazil, Sponsored by Speedo,” November 29, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15974

“Speedo Disavows Sponsorship of Alex Pussieldi’s Brazilian Swimming Clinics, Says Endorsement Made ‘Without Authorization’,” November 29, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15990

“The Questions USA Swimming Must Answer about Exiled Abuser Coach Alex Pussieldi — Now a Sport Powerbroker Back in Brazil,” November 30, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15994

“In the Matter of Alex Pussieldi’s Status in Brazil, There’s Precedent for Sanctioning a National Swimming Federation,” December 9, https://concussioninc.net/?p=16001