A midfielder, he later played semi-professionally for a number of British non-League clubs, most notably Northwich Victoria and Queen's Park.
[1] In 2006, he was featured on a Sky TV documentary Super Fakes which covered the stories of Zarrelli and Ali Dia who had both attempted to con professional football clubs into signing them.
The faxes stated that the footballer on offer had supposedly played at youth level for clubs such as Sheffield Wednesday and Rangers.
[4] The first club he contacted was in January 2005, when he approached IFA Premiership side Lisburn Distillery, who eventually were duped into signing him on a short-term deal,[5][6] but he was released after an underwhelming performance in a friendly against Finn Harps.
[4] He then contacted Welsh Premier League side Bangor City in July 2005, who were unaware of his previous exploits in Northern Ireland, but after staying with the club ten days, manager Peter Davenport contacted Mike Rigg who worked for Zarrelli's supposed former club Sheffield Wednesday.
Rigg said that they had never heard of him,[7] equally Glasgow Rangers also confirmed that they had no knowledge of the player ever being on their books[8] and Antonelli Valenti of the Italian Football Federation said Zarrelli's name appeared nowhere on the association's database at any level.
[11] He was eventually exposed by the show when[12] the documentary crew was able to track the fax number Zarrelli had been using to a shop in Asti, Italy round the corner from his parents' house.
The crew set up a sting operation in London, where they staged a meeting posing as football scouts interested in signing him.
Asked initially about the "Matteo Colobase", Zarrelli said that he was a friend of the family before the interviewer revealed who he actually was and that the meeting was a setup.
[2][13] Since the controversy in 2005 and having it reported in the documentary in 2006, Zarrelli managed to progress to a career in semi-professional football and soon moved to Scotland where he played with Ardeer Thistle and Queens Park,[14] before being loaned out to Irvine Meadow.
[20] He later moved on to Erith & Belvedere in January 2014 until the end of the season and would eventually suffer relegation from the Isthman League.
[28][29] On 21 November 2018, Zarrelli was killed when his blue Mini Cooper collided head on with a Volkswagen Caddy van on the A505 between Royston and Duxford.