LONDON — The only time I have ever been in the presence of Sepp Blatter was in October 2013, when he was the guest speaker at the Football Association’s 150th anniversary dinner.
I had been invited in my role as an England coach and the room was full of the great and good of English and world football. I had Gianfranco Zola, Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano, Terry Venables and Gareth Southgate alongside me on our table.
When Blatter began to speak, he did OK for the first two or three minutes, saying a few complimentary things to his audience, but the speech then descended into something that just became a hideous experience.
He went on for 25-30 minutes and, just when you thought he had finished, he started up again. It reminded me of one of those candles on a child’s birthday cake which you think has been blown out, only for the flame to flicker back into life.
When he spoke about issues such as sexism and racism in football, it just did not sit comfortably. It was a bizarre half-hour from a man who appeared out of touch and someone who had run his race.
The events of this week surrounding the FIFA presidential election have been incredible, but no real surprise to anybody involved in the game, as a supporter, player or official.
Greg Dyke, the FA chairman, has condemned it, while vice-chair David Gill has been very strong on the situation. As for UEFA and Michel Platini coming out and calling for Blatter to stand down, it is a worrying sign if we have to hang our hat on Platini! With France voting for Blatter, Platini can’t even control his own federation, never mind UEFA.
We have to stress that no charges of wrongdoing have been brought against Sepp Blatter, but what he cannot escape is the stain on FIFA’s and football’s reputation that has been caused during his time in charge of the organization.
Running FIFA should be the easiest job in the world because all you have to do is put on a World Cup every four years, persuade enough sponsors to pay for it and then leave the teams to get on with it in front of thousands of fans. Once this is done, distribute the money in a fair manner.
But FIFA has become a sideshow and I find it obscene that such a powerful and influential body can have such an individual in charge whilst so much wrong crawls around him.
Yet while people are talking about sponsors or fans getting rid of Blatter and forcing change in the organization, nobody is mentioning the role that the players can play and, in my opinion, they are the group that can wield the greatest power.
The quickest and best way to bring Blatter down is to take players away from him. You will struggle to take the African or Asian votes away from him, but players can become a unified force.
I do genuinely believe, as a player, that you should do the job you are there to do, which is to play football and stay out of the politics of the game. However this is about players wielding their power against corruption …
I am not suggesting players should go out on a limb by going on strike, but FIFA and Blatter would be nothing without the players. It would need to be a coordinated and united force.
Just think of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the two biggest stars in the game right now, and consider a World Cup without those two.
The tournament would not exist if Ronaldo and Messi turned their backs on the World Cup because of the way FIFA is running the game. This would impact sponsors and broadcasters and in turn bring this whole debacle of an organization to a standstill.
But it is not down to individual players to lead the way by becoming a lone wolf in this. It is about the organizations that have been set up by the players to deal with this because former players, such as David Ginola and Luis Figo, have tried to take on Blatter, but they have been unable to make any inroads.
This is about smart thinking and players uniting through FIFPro (the world players union) to rid the game of the stain that is currently damaging it.
Sepp Blatter has reigned over turmoil for years now and he is the man at the top of the operation, but he is still in charge and it is beyond laughable and unprecedented, in politics, sport or industry, where one individual can remain in power like this.
Maybe the only way to get rid of him is if players get together and vote not to play in his tournaments.
If that happens, he is done.
Gary Neville is a former player with the English national team and Manchester United and current coach of England’s national team.
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