Blattered & bruised: Sepp's 'clean' Fifa career being dragged through the mud

Down all his 40 years at Fifa Sepp Blatter has been the Teflon man. Whatever mud might have been thrown at the increasingly embattled world football federation, none has ever stuck to him.

Initially Blatter was development director, then general secretary, then chief executive and, since 1998, president. Now his command of the presidency hangs by a thread after the Swiss Attorney-General, Michael Lauber, launched a criminal investigation into the 79-year-old's activities.

Throughout the last scandal-shrouded months Blatter has insisted that, whatever accusations might assail all those around him, at least he was "clean" and thus the right man at the helm "to bring the good ship Fifa safely into port."

Two weeks ago all that changed when details were revealed of a contract signed off a decade ago by Blatter in favour of the Caribbean fiefdom of Jack Warner, then the head of the central and north American confederation and a vice-president of Fifa. On the face of it Blatter had approved the sale of World Cup television rights at far below market price.