He was introduced as "the elected president of FIFA" but the Sepp Blatter who sat in front of reporters on Monday, shortly after receiving an eight-year ban from soccer, appeared very different to the confident man who had led the sport's global governing body for 17 years.
Blatter looked pale and frail, unusually unshaven and with a plaster below his right eye; the tribulations of the past months, which had seen him suspended pending a FIFA ethics investigation and placed under criminal investigation in his homeland, seemed to have taken their toll on the 79-year-old Swiss. His message contained some defiance: he vowed to fight the ban, insisted he had done no wrong and hit out at those who had questioned his integrity and honesty.
He even ended the press conference, held symbolically at FIFA's old headquarters, with Arnold Schwarzenegger's old line: "I'll be back." But, that touch of toughness aside, his tone was more one of hurt, self-pity and incomprehension. After a rambling introduction, with a reference to late South African leader Nelson Mandela, he began a statement that sounded initially like an apology but ended as something very different.
"I'm really sorry. I'm sorry. I am sorry that I am still somewhere a punching ball. I'm sorry that I'm, as president of FIFA, this punching ball. I'm sorry for football," he said. "I am sorry for the 400-plus FIFA members who work there. I'm sorry. I am sorry about how I am treated in this world of humanitarian qualities. I'm sorry for the Federation Internationale de Football Association. "But I'm also sorry about me, how I'm treated in this world." Blatter, who spent a week in hospital in November, after which he said he had been close to death, sat with his daughter Corinne throughout the media conference.
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