Sepp Blatter has branded as "ludicrous" claims that bribery charges against Mohamed Bin Hammam are an attempt to smear his opponent for the FIFA presidency.
Asian football chief Bin Hammam and Jack Warner are to appear before FIFA's ethics committee on Sunday to face the bribery allegations and both men have denied wrongdoing and suggested they are victims of an election tactic.
Blatter said however in his column on insideworldfootball.biz: "To now assume that the present ordeal of my opponent were to fill me with some sort of perverse satisfaction or that this entire matter was somehow masterminded by me is ludicrous and completely reprehensible. I am shocked, saddened and deeply unhappy about the charges levelled against a man whose friendship I enjoyed for many years."
He added: "It gives me no pleasure to see him suffer public disgrace before an investigation would even have started."
The pair will face long bans if the allegations - made by fellow executive committee member Chuck Blazer - are proven and Blatter commended the American for coming forward.
He added: "I am all for the zero-tolerance policy I announced a while back and will continue to fight corruption in football to the best of my ability.
"But I also admire Chuck Blazer's civic courage and an initiative that resulted from reports he received from within the confederation he administers as its secretary general.
"I am horrified by the most recent developments that are shedding a very bad light on FIFA yet again: no sane person can take pleasure in this development, and no decent person will enjoy the troubles of others, be that friend or foe."
Blatter pledged reforms of FIFA if he is re-elected next week and said he is hopeful FIFA "can weather the storm of its own creation". In a bizarre ending to his column, the 75-year-old invoked a parable from his homeland of Switzerland.
He said: "When a Swiss farmer's neighbour has a cow while he has none, the less fortunate farmer will work twice as hard so that one day he can buy a cow as well. When another farmer, elsewhere, on an island, say, has no cow but his neighbour does, that farmer will kill the neighbour's cow out of sheer malice. I'd rather be a Swiss farmer, like it or not."
Source: PA
