You knew this news conference was about to spin splendidly off the rails when Sepp Blatter, the emperor of world soccer, opened with an apology that wasn’t.
“I am sorry,” he told the news media in Switzerland on Monday after learning he would be suspended from soccer for eight years. “I am sorry that I am still somewhere a punching ball.”
Blatter, a plump, balding man of 79 whose remaining hair sweeps ski-jump style off the back of his pate, has commanded the throne of the Beautiful Game for more than a decade. His professional life was magnificent: so many hours spent in grand hotels, eating grand meals and sipping grander wines, with an annual salary estimated as north of $6 million.