Sepp Blatter, the suspended former president of world football’s governing body FIFA, has met Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, defying FIFA’s wish for him to attract little attention. Blatter says he went to see the Russian president after watching Portugal’s 1-0 win over Morocco in Moscow on Wednesday – wearing the laminate fan ID card required for all people attending World Cup games in Russia. “We had small talks,” the 82-year-old Swiss said on Thursday. “We spoke about football and the good start of the competition, the good start of the [Russian] team.” Blatter is serving a six-year ban from official football duties for financial misconduct during his 17-year rule. The terms of the ban, which runs until October 2021, meant he was kept separate from his successor Gianni Infantino and other football officials at Luzhniki Stadium. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to give details of Blatter’s visit, describing it as “a private meeting”. Zurich-based FIFA also ...
