The small Swiss town where he grew up is surrounded by mountains – but the summit of Sepp Blatter’s destiny was not Alpine, rather the peak of the world’s dominant sport.br br His election as FIFA’s president in 1998 followed decades of climbing the sports management ladder – first in ice hockey, and then within football’s governing body itself, beginning as its technical director.br br Seventeen years later he presides over a glitzy multi-billion dollar global industry.br br But in the words of the French paper l’Equipe, so rotten has FIFA become that the noxious stench of its overflowing sewers is impossible to avoid.br br In recent years investigations by several of the world’s leading publications such as The Sunday Times have presented detailed allegations of corruption – especially of money changing hands in return for favours from highly influential FIFA officials.