Old Goat Blatter May Be Running Out Of Time

Last week Sepp Blatter compared himself to a mountain goat that "keeps going and going and going".

It was an apt metaphor. Despite facing the rockiest terrain of his 40 years at FIFA , and a chorus of bleating from politicians and the international media, he is still standing at the top of the football mountain.

Whether the climb will be worth the view remains to be seen. FIFA is embroiled in its deepest scandal, with the US and Swiss authorities patiently pulling at the threads of decades of alleged corruption.

The police may have hauled dozens of officials in for questioning and raided the temple to Blatter's hubris that is FIFA house, but it did not wrong-foot the president for long.

After two days in his bunker on the hill in Zurich, he and his advisors emerged with a self-preservation plan.

It relied on a familiar strategy, one used to equally cynical effect in 2011 when he won his fourth term amid the burning wreckage of the scandalous 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process.

The game plan was to blame errant individuals, pledge to clean up the mess, and call for unity and solidarity from his beloved football family.

Most important of all, at no point would he accept that as leader, he should accept responsibility for the contamination of FIFA's image.

With depressing predictability, it may have worked, but it may prove a hollow victory .

Blatter might cast it as a personal triumph but it is a disaster for FIFA's reputation. Events of the last week have only deepened cynicism about the organisation and placed pressure on its sponsors and broadcasters.

Public contempt is almost total, and put on hold for only four weeks every four years, when the World Cup kicks off.

Given its popularity, the mumbled threats of boycotting tournaments are unlikely to coalesce into deeds, and even a World Cup in Russia, with a war raging on its western border, is unlikely to derail the show.

But while Blatter looks forward to a summer with his ally Vladimir Putin, he may not be so relaxed about the FBI investigation.

He has not been cited or arrested as part of the inquiry, but a number of his FIFA lieutenants have, and it is impossible to know where the investigation will go next.

It certainly won't go away, not with the political capital of US attorney general Loretta Lynch invested in the enterprise.

And while the newest crisis deepens, the last one lingers, with the 2010 World Cup election scandal yet to have run its course.

Blatter's victory was another triumph for his political nous and self-serving cynicism, and for the self-interest of those that elect him.

But there may come a day when the old goat regrets not putting himself out to grass when he had the chance.