KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: A defiant Sepp Blatter has promised: “I will be back,” after denouncing the eight-year football ban imposed on the FIFA president by the world federation’s ethics committee.

He said he would follow process via the FIFA appeal committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss civil courts.

The 79-year-old Swiss, already fearing the worst, had summoned a news conference to the lecture theatre of the old FIFA House which he had hired as ‘private citizen’. He was flanked by his former FIFA ‘ghost-writer’ Thomas Renggli and his daughter Corinne.

Blatter opened with a rambling reference to the qualities of humanity and respect exemplified by Nelson Mandela and which, he felt, had been denied him by his accusers.

He had been made a “punching ball” and for this he felt sorry as a representative “for football, for FIFA, for the 400 FIFA team members and also for how I am treated.”

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