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He is convinced that the US investigations began from then, and he railed at the Swiss authorities for cooperating so fully, at the unfairness of it all. He accepted that the American investigators appeared to have found major corruption, mentioning kickbacks on Copa America TV deals, but he argued that had nothing to do with Fifa itself, it involved the confederations, over which he had no control.

“So why the hell then should the Fifa president bear all the charges, the responsibility and the blame?”

He singled out former Confederation of North, Central American And Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) president Jeff Webb as the most breathtaking scoundrel of all. Blatter recalled being at the publication of the Concacaf integrity report, which identified the alleged frauds of the former secretary general and president Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner, and that Webb presented himself as the president for a new era of decency.

“Jeffrey Webb had tears coming down his face, saying: ‘I am humbled, I accept it; I promise I will do that.’ Blatter, warming up, did a little impression of Webb, and mimed the weeping.

Then, on that morning at the Baur au Lac: “The first one arrested was him,” Blatter said. “How can you be misled by that or by yourself to say this man is a correct man? I was already thinking that he could be tomorrow the president of Fifa, a good person, a strong man.”

Throughout the conversation, Blatter maintained he did not know that the people around that executive committee table, whose support he nurtured for so many years, were corrupt. He said that after the arrests he had thought he had been “wrong to trust people” although he admitted that he was not surprised about some of them.

He is not impressed with whistleblowers in general, even criticising Yuliya Stepanova, who had recently exposed the Russian state doping of athletes, the great scandal breaking over athletics. “She wants to go to the Olympics, and now everybody says it is a shame she can’t go because she is a whistleblower. Before long whistleblowers will be allowed to go to everything,” he sneered. “Because if you are a whistleblower, it’s not correct as well.”

Startled by that statement, I asked him to clarify; was he saying whistleblowers are not correct?

“No,” he confirmed. “At school, if you had somebody who was a whistleblower towards the tutor, then ...” and he trailed off, as if it was obvious.

“Do you still think that?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“That they are like a snitch in school?”

“Yes, yes,” he said.