Sepp Blatter spread his arms wide and challenged his audience of men in suits: "Are you happy?" Of course they were.

The president of Fifa was dispensing his organisation's largesse with an enthusiasm that put a sheen on even the world's richest sporting event.

Delegates at this week's Fifa congress, a meeting of representatives of the 208 football associations around the globe, had just listened to a rundown of the world governing body's finances that read on the same scale as a small African state.

Fifa earned more than $1-billion last year for the first time and has more than $1-billion in the bank. Revenues have soared by a factor of 12 since 1998, when Blatter was elected.

So when the president announced he wanted to give each association a $250000 bonus, plus another $2.5-million to each confederation, such as Uefa, there was an understandable murmur of gratitude.

There was an almost overwhelming fervour in Blatter's tone as he asked congress to approve giving away Fifa's money. This was another Blatter coup at the end of a back-slapping, hand-shaking, award-accepting week for the diminutive Swiss.

The richest World Cup in history should have been the climax of Blatter's long career. Even he would admit that he went out on a limb pushing a World Cup to Africa for the first time, and to a nation whose crime statistics make grim reading and whose reputation for getting things done was not exactly glowing.

But the tournament is here, as he said it would be, and kicked off Friday in a spectacular new stadium. Sponsor money is rolling in and broadcasters have paid record prices to show the month-long tournament.

But this was not "job done" after all, as some of his opponents may have hoped. Even after a dozen sometimes troubled years in office and at the age of 74, Blatter wants to go on. He confirmed this week that he would stand for another four-year term as president next year, and after a congress that looked more like a political rally than a meeting of football executives, who is to say anyone would dare to challenge him?

"I am still motivated," he said. "I am not just motivated, I want to do it. I will, I will. My mission is not over and my mission for football is not yet over."

If Blatter's mission has been to transform football into a global financial powerhouse with the World Cup at its apex, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Even though Fifa was forced to pump an estimated $1.2-billion into South Africa to ensure the tournament went ahead on time, it is still expected to generate a generous surplus.

There will be more TV viewers than ever and the World Cup will boost sales in almost every country of the world, everything from TV sets to T-shirts. In England, for example, Tesco, the official World Cup supermarket, expects to sell 800000 flags and 500000 footballs.

Amid the deafening sound of cash registers ringing, though, Blatter can claim extraordinary progress in diverting money to the grassroots of the game.

Fifa figures show 73% of its income goes back into football and almost $700-million has been spent in the past three years on development programmes. - ©The Times, London