‘No Current Professional, Business, or Personal Association’ With Disgraced Brazilian Coach Alex Pussieldi, Azura Aquatics Owner Gianluca Alberani Insists

PREVIOUSLY:

“Alex Pussieldi Update: Decade After Ouster in Florida, Peeping Tom and Multinational Trafficker Coach Remains a Powerful Figure in Brazilian Swimming,” October 27, 2025, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15882

“Questions Swirl Around Azura Aquatics in Davie, Florida. Is Owner Gianluca Alberani Just Alex Pussieldi 2.0?,” January 28, https://concussioninc.net/?p=16521

“Alex Pussieldi Is Hiding in Plain Sight at Meets in Florida, and USA Swimming Has Nothing to Say,” February 11, https://concussioninc.net/?p=16538

“Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida – Where Alex Pussieldi Retains a Significant Footprint Through Association with Azura Aquatics – Is ‘Reviewing’ Questions about His Campus Presence,” February 19, https://concussioninc.net/?p=16546

by Irvin Muchnick

After several tight-lipped weeks regarding rumored ties to a disgraced Brazilian coach in quasi-exile from USA Swimming, the owner of Azura Aquatics – the age-group program operating out of Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida – issued a statement confronting questions pertaining to Alex Pussieldi’s connection to regional swimming.

Pussieldi’s Nadadores team, also based at Nova Southeastern, collapsed amidst sexual abuse and meet-entry scandals in 2013.

On Monday, the owner and head coach of Azura, Gianluca Alberani, sent me an email message whose text is reproduced just below in its entirety. Alberani’s statement is followed by the text of my email reply, reinforcing specific remaining unanswered questions (to which no response had been received by the time of this article’s publication).

In his message, Alberani accurately points out that he previously addressed related questions from this reporter 12 years ago. Interested readers are directed to the February 27, 2014, post “New Club, Azura Aquatics, Carries on Alex Pussieldi’s High-Powered Multinational Model in South Florida,” https://concussioninc.net/?p=8733.

Our new questions in the current climate are based on information from swimming sources in Florida and are fueled by videos from Pussieldi’s own social media of him at meets in Florida.

According to our sources, Pussieldi has maintained his home in Fort Lauderdale and spends a lot of time there, though his main power base these days is Brazilian and South American swimming. The coach has fended off at least one formal complaint to Confederação Brasileira de Desportos Aquáticos (CBDA), the governing body of aquatic sports in Brazil. Pussieldi runs clinics in Brazil and has a prominent event there named in his honor. Additionally, he is communications director of Confederación Sudamericana de Natación (CONSANAT), the governance body of South American swimming.

We await comment from Azura’s Alberini on reported sightings of Pussieldi on the Nova Southeastern campus. We lack a substantive response from the university, as well.

Meanwhile, USA Swimming will neither confirm nor deny that Pussieldi is on the organization’s unofficial secret “flagged” list of individuals who are not publicly banned but are unwelcome on American pool decks. USA Swimming has said only that Pussieldi is not currently a registered member.

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ALBERANI’S FEBRUARY 23 EMAIL

Mr. Muchnick:

I am writing to respond formally to your recent communications and statements referencing Azura Florida Aquatics and my name in connection with Mr. Alex Pussieldi.

I want to be very clear and direct, while remaining respectful. I have spent the past 13 years building Azura Florida Aquatics with integrity, focused on developing athletes and creating positive opportunities for families, including my own. This work represents years of dedication, relationships, and trust within our community.

You contacted me on this same topic over a decade ago, and at that time I clarified that there is no association between Azura Florida Aquatics and Mr. Alex Pussieldi. I confirm that this remains true today. I ended my professional relationship with Mr. Pussieldi in September 2013. I have no current professional, business, or personal association with him, and our organizations and activities have been entirely separate for more than a decade.

Accordingly, any attempt to characterize Azura Florida Aquatics as a rebranding, continuation, extension, affiliate, or operational counterpart of any prior organization associated with Mr. Pussieldi is inaccurate and misleading.

For avoidance of doubt, Azura Florida Aquatics is an independent organization and there is no affiliation of any kind–whether operational, financial, supervisory, advisory, logistical, or personal, between Azura and Mr. Pussieldi. This includes, without limitation, any alleged involvement in Azura’s athlete recruitment, programming, training, staffing, housing, travel, clinics (domestic or international), partnerships, sponsorships, education-related pathways, or competition participation. Mr. Pussieldi has no role in Azura’s decision-making, governance, or day-to-day operations, and has no involvement in any living arrangements connected to Azura athletes. All Azura activities are organized and conducted solely under Azura’s direction, with internal controls and safeguarding protocols that are independently maintained and enforced in alignment with applicable governing body standards and requirements.

Given the clarity of my position, and the fact that this has already been addressed in the past, I respectfully request that you stop contacting institutions, partners, or third parties using my name or Azura Florida Aquatics in connection with matters related to Mr. Pussieldi. If you are pursuing information about him, that is your prerogative, but it should not involve me or our organization, which are independent and unrelated and could be unfairly harmed by such associations.

I remain committed to transparency regarding my own work and record, and I ask that the same respect be shown toward the years of effort and integrity invested in building Azura Florida Aquatics and our reputation. I request that Azura, its leadership, staff, athletes, and family members not be associated with unrelated matters or representations that mischaracterize our work.

Sincerely,

Gianluca Alberani

*****

MUCHNICK’S FEBRUARY 23 EMAIL

Mr. Alberani:

Thank you for your message. I will publish your text in full. I am also right now taking the liberty of cc’ing here entities that have responded inadequately or not at all to associated queries directed to them: Florida Gold Coast Swimming, USA Swimming, and Nova Southeastern University. (Reaching out to the third-party institutions was driven, in part, by your failure before now to respond to or even acknowledge emails of January 26 and January 29.)

And before I publish again on this topic at ConcussionInc.net, I request that you proceed to address in depth the specific questions below.

It is the case that you emphatically denied any Pussieldi affiliations for an article published at my site in 2014 – I will advise readers to circle back there. However, this does not disqualify revisiting questions about possible ties of your program to this disgraced coach and dangerous figure, in light of new and undisguised sightings of him at swimming events in Florida. Appropriate journalistic questions also flow from the housing arrangements for your foreign swimmers, which raise the issue of Nadadores’ and Azura’s possibly consonant “business models.”

I have noted that similar or identical business models would not necessarily be an indictment of Azura, if your program is not marked by the heinous abuses seen in the old housing arrangements of Pussieldi’s “wards.” By the same token, those of us who are concerned about the exposure of underage athletes to sexual abuse can speculate whether overly commercialized elite athletic programs, targeting the development of teenagers living away from home, might contribute to an unsafe environment or culture. In sum, given the Davie / South Florida swimming region’s specific past scandals, as well as general reporting on the sport’s lapses in these areas across the country and around the world, renewed contemporary questions to you are both justified and important.

• I asked last month: “According to my sources, a number of your foreign swimmers reside at the Palm Trace Landings apartment complex. Can you confirm? Do these swimmers live on their own or are they hosted or chaperoned by others? In what ways do these arrangements differ from Pussieldi’s housing of imported athletes on the Nova Southeastern University campus?” Please respond.

• Subsequent to my original query, Nova Southeastern University campus sources, whom I consider plausibly reliable, have told me that Pussieldi was seen, very recently, both on the pool deck of the Nova aquatics complex, at Azura Aquatics practices, and in the VIP section of the Rick Case Arena, where swimmers were being showcased. What is your rejoinder?

I look forward to hearing back from you promptly.

Irvin Muchnick