THEY say Primo Nebiolo is the only man in sport who cannot be insulted. "They say that Nebiolo has left large foot prints in international athletics, some of them on the throats of pretty good men. They say Nebiolo likes to be treated like a president. They say he's a megalomaniac, a dictator. They say he's ruthless, pompous, vindictive, charmingly self deprecating, clever and extravagant.

They say that his spending habits are profligate and that he has a thirst for self aggrandisement. They say he is a survivor armed with a street fighter's instincts, a political figurehead more than an administrator, a manager of an organisation one former employee described as "a police state without the torture".

Nebiolo says: "those who haven't erred haven't lived".

Primo Nebiolo doesn't sweep into Dublin's Jury's Hotel; he is ushered in on the draught of half a dozen, sweeping Italian suits. Behind him in the corridor Alberto Juantorena, the former Cuban 400 metres and 800 metres Olympic gold medallist stands talking to a delegate and dwarfs his president. With no tie and with his top button open, Juantorena, 20 years on, still exudes the phenomenal power that took him to his Montreal double.

Still, all eyes are on Nebiolo. Flanked by sober officials, you try to reconcile his rotund, college professor gait with his standing as the head of world athletics, a man reputedly unafraid to take on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan, Antonio Samaranch.

Nebiolo is barking endless instructions in Italian to his helpers, one of them a former runner at the university he himself attended in Turin, the other whom he keeps referring to as "the rugby champion". He leads you through two rooms, one with impressive antique furniture, the other with sofas and tables. More doors present themselves. What else to symbolise the life and work of Primo Nebiolo.

He opens his navy jacket, rolls back in his chair, swings his feet on to the coffee table and opens his jacket to reveal his initials, PN, clearly stitched on his shirt, just at the overhang of his paunch. He opens the palms of his hands, pushes back his Giorgio Armani spectacles. The president is ready.

Nebiolo hasn't done badly for himself. Commentators have said that Primo, married to the principle of survival, looks after Primo first and then looks after athletics. As a result, he has had to face accusations of being a despot. To him it is jealousy.

If you look at other leaders in organisations who are in a position of power, then everyone else thinks they have too much."

His current health can be judged by the strength of the 206-nation International Amateur Athletics Association (IAAF), which he took over in 1981 and has since treated as a personal power base. He has turned it from an amateur body with a turnover of £160,000 into an organisation with annual revenue of £33 million. The IAAF's current television contract with the European Broadcasting Union, a six year deal that runs through to the yea 2000, is worth approximately £65 million.

Before he took control there were no sanctioned fees for athletes, no authorised bonuses for world records, no biennial World Championships, no Cross Country World Championships, no World Indoor Championships, no Grand Prix circuit.

He has also indicated that next year's World Championships in Athens will, to the first time ever, pay medallists prize money. In 1995, at Gothenburg, Mercedes cars were the prize. In a simple redefinition of amateurism, Nebiolo is merely "compensating" athletes.

"We do not pay them a salary. We do not give them a pension. We do not employ them. We compensate them. It is not professionalism," he says.

The road to riches, taken by a body that could have banned an athlete for life in 1982 for accepting more than £65, has been embraced by those who benefit most - the athletes. With money has come power, and Nebiolo has been able to further his own career. He is now one of the most influential men in world sport and the third point in the so called Latin pyramid, along with Spain's Samaranch, the IOC president, and Brazil's Joao Havelange, the head of FIFA, the governing body of world soccer. Nebiolo is the most criticised and feared of the three.

It took the former Italian athlete only one year as chief to cash in the flimsy amateur regulations.

"He's done a terrific job," says one IOC member. "He's increased track and field all over the world, particularly in Europe, and he has made the sport extremely rich."

But Nebiolo is not content. He looks back at Atlanta and pulls a long, deeply wounded face. Of the $1.5 billion in television revenue the IOC took in from the Games, the IAAF received only $2 million.

"It is not correct," he says. "We were happy to be invited to play a part in the Olympic Games, but, we don't receive orders. Our autonomy is complete. We accepted to be in the programme. We want to be correct, but the participation of athletics - in the Olympic needs to be discussed. At the moment things are not the best."

Nebiolo has cleverly allied himself with blocks of sports federations and traded on the world sports market like a commodities dealer. As a member of the IOC, the International University Sports Federations (FISU), the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) and as president of the International Athletic Foundation (IAF), an organisation based in Monte Carlo with more than $20 million in a private hank, his influences are far reaching.

Nebiolo regularly talks to Samaranch by phone, trying to secure larger slices of the Olympic pie for his assorted affiliates. For the Atlanta Olympics, he attempted to sell advertising space on the bibs worn by track and field athletes to Coca Cola for £15 million. Samaranch, although promised a halt share, intervened to stop the deal. Undeterred, Nebiolo took off his IAAF hat and began, to negotiate on behalf of ASOIF, an organisation founded, on his insistence in 1983 and of which he is president. He targeted another section of sponsorship money in the Olympic Partnership fund and finally prised £22 million out of Samaranch for the 25 summer Olympic federations. The lion's share of £4.3 million went to the IAAF.

Nobody understands why Samaranch puts up with him, unless it's the theory that it's better to have your enemies inside your tent than outside," says one IOC member. "On a personal level, myself and Mr Samaranch are extremely good friends," says Nebiolo.

Before the 1988, Olympics, Nebiolo was said to have negotiated a $20 million payment from the South Korean Olympic Organising Committee for agreeing to changes in the track and field finals, made to accommodate NBC, the US television rights holder. He used the money to set up the IAF which he now employs in any way he wishes for the betterment of athletics. There is no public accounts of its expenditure. Nebiolo will neither divulge, the foundation's worth today, nor confirm that the seed money came from the Koreans. "There are rumours, he says, coyly. Life is good because everyone is able to express their opinions.

The conflicts come not from his bullish navigations through international waters, but from what many people see as his dictatorial rule of the IAAF. He has survived several ignominious scandals where cheating, at its most crude, was exposed at major world meetings. Not only that, he used the full weight of his office to murky the waters.

In the final minutes of the men's 20k walk in Rome, judge Nicola Maggio, an Italian violated several procedures and disqualified Mexico's Daniel Garcia who was in second place. That allowed Italian walker Giovanni De Benedictis to win the silver medal. The Race Walking Commission, chaired by Bob Bowman of the US, subsequently recommended that Maggio be suspended.

"We felt in our hearts that Maggio had probably cheated, but we had no real proof," said one commission member.

Nebiolo stepped in. He, not only rebuffed the commission but appointed the judge to the World Junior track and field championships. The commission refused to back down and insisted on a hearing.

According to an IAAF source, Nebiolo said to Bowman: "why do you wish to destroy yourself." The president chaired the meeting. "Primo made his presentation and that was that," says the source. Maggio was exonerated.

More serious was the case of Giovanni Eangylisti at the Rome World Champion ships in 1987. Long jumper Evangelist was one of Italy's top athletes competing in Nebiolo's old event. On the last of his six attempts, the Italian's jump was measured at 26 feet six inches, surpassing American Larry Mayrick's best attempt by two inches for the bronze medal.

However, judges and journalists watching at the side of the pit immediately knew that something was amiss. Evangelisti appeared not to have gone nearly that far and had left the pit dejected. But the Italian judges immediately erased the mark and declared the jump clean.

According to Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings, co authors of an unflattering book on the Olympic movement, The Lords Of The Rings, director of the championships Paolo Giannone told an Italian coach who was suspicious of the long jump results: "You must understand, we were told that Evangelisti had to get a medal."

"Who had told them that Evangelisti had to get a medal was never disclosed and no one ever charged Nebiolo with malfeasance in the affair. Despite television footage from an unmanned camera showing an official measuring the mark before Evangelisti even took his jump, Nebiolo refused to acknowledge that anything irregular took place.

"Life is good," says Nebiolo. "Because everyone is entitled to express their opinion."

The Italian Olympic Committee confirmed that fraud had been committed. Three officials of the Italian federation (FIDAL) were banned from the sport and Luciano Barra, Nebiolo's assistant and secretary general of FIDAL, resigned. As head of FIDAL and the IAAF, Nebilio might have been expected to step down in the wake of the disgrace, but he held on, accepting no responsibility for the scandal.

Two years later, under intense pressure from the Italian Olympic Committee, he did resign as president of FIDAL, just a month after being elected to a new four year term as head of the IAAF.

More recently, alleges Chris Winner, the IAAF's director of media and public relations until July 1995, the elections of the annual male and female athlete of the year were rigged at Nebiolo's whim.

"After the ballots had been counted in 1994, Nebiolo called my office to find out who had won. I told him Morceli had won the men's and Sally Gunnell had easily won the women's for a second year in a row over Jackie Joyner Kersee. `Are you sure,' he asked. `How can this be. Maybe some of the ballots have not come in yet. You never know.' I later got a call from his assistant saying not to make any announcements. Then I got a packet from Rome that contained 23 ballots all with Jackie Joyner Kersee's name on them. It was just enough to put her over the top. I was privy to fraud and didn't do anything about it.

Some within the IAAF say Nebiolo is dreaming of becoming IOC president. If so, it would be unwise to discount his chances. It was Nebiolo, with Havelange, who spear headed a drive at an IOC session to extend the age, limit of its members from 75 to 80. That will allow the 75 year old Samaranch to ion again next year.

In 2001 Samaranch would have to step down and that could leave room for Nebiolo who will be 78 then. He refuses to be drawn. Nebiolo holds Samaranch in high esteem and I hope Samaranch holds, Nebiolo, in high esteem, he says. Just how high we will know within four years.