The LEN Bureau, the governing body for aquatic sports in Europe, received a vote of no confidence on September 25 at the LEN Congress meeting in Budapest, as first reported by Total Water Polo, leading to a request for an extraordinary Congress in early 2022 to elect new leadership.
The no-confidence motion was won by 23 nations to 22, with the final tally being 46-44, as each nation gets two votes.
Immediately following the vote, Portuguese Federation President Antonio Silva handed the Secretary General of the LEN a request for an extraordinary congress that had been signed by members of 24 European nations, including Germany, Russia, France, Greece and Switzerland.
If the extraordinary congress meeting, tentatively scheduled for February 5, 2022, in Paris, were to move forward, “Dismissal of the actual LEN Bureau and Election of a new Bureau” will be the lone items on the agenda.
In November 2020, Paolo Barelli was re-elected to a third term as LEN president by a decisive 86-13 vote, but the organization’s general trust in the Italian has clearly gone south in the last 10 months.
According to reports, Barelli was immediately bombarded by federation representatives at the beginning of the General Congress on Saturday, with questions regarding non-transparency in his work, a Swiss police investigation, and a lack of communication with FINA.
Following that, German president Marco Troll requested a secret vote on behalf of 10 federations, which, by constitution rules, had to be accepted.
The “Discharge of the LEN Bureau“ item on the agenda went through and the vote ultimately resulted in the no-confidence motion winning.
Total Water Polo‘s Marko Štefanek wrote that this has been a long-time coming and he expects Barelli to push back on whether the February meeting will take place.
“Given that Barelli’s house of cards has finally collapsed, we will get a new LEN leadership in early February 2022 and they will have the opportunity to repair all that has gone wrong in the last ten years while also starting everything that has never been done.
“We can be sure that Paolo Barelli will attempt everything he can to obstruct this decision, and that he will use well-known political trading tactics to shift the votes back to his side.”
The LEN issued a press release following the General Congress meeting without mentioning the vote of no confidence that took place.
An announcement followed two days later where the organization addressed the motion and disputed some of the accusations that had been made.
Full LEN Statement:
The LEN annual Congress was held on 25 September 2021 in Budapest. It has duly approved both the LEN Activity Report and the Financial Report for the year 2020.
A petition requesting the holding of an Extraordinary Congress has also been received. It is currently being assessed by the Legal Department in accordance with the LEN regulations and Swiss law.
Some false accusations on the administration of LEN have been circulated. Such accusations have repeatedly been rejected by LEN, by the members of the Bureau as well as by an independent third party auditor.
LEN and its Bureau members are convinced of its good administration and governance and will continue to work for the good and interests of LEN and its Federations.
LEN reserve all liability actions against the promoters of the accusations in order to protect LEN’s image and integrity.
Historically, Paolo Barelli has been quite vocal about issues within FINA. He ran for FINA president in 2017, & filed an ethics lawsuit against them. Am wondering to what degree politics is again playing a role in this latest story. Anyone with more info?