Kicked out of the game he had ruled for so long, Sepp Blatter's departure from Fifa along with that of the next most powerful man in the sport - likely successor and Uefa chief Michel Platini - seemed like a defining moment.
After so many years of corruption, and with so many of those at the top of the sport disgraced, banned or under investigation, a void now exists at the top of world football.
And yet, because we have become so conditioned, so numb, to the years of scandal, deceit and theft, instinct prevents us from assuming anything. What appears truly momentous turns out to be merely incremental.
So could this be the moment, once and for all, that things actually change? A tipping point? Or yet another false dawn?
Little wonder that some are cautious.
For most people, watching events from afar, Blatter left office five months ago, when he announced he would be stepping down.
I remember the now-familiar dash to Zurich that June evening, the world's media descending on Fifa HQ to herald a fresh start, a new era. The recovery - it appeared - would now begin.
But Blatter stayed, clinging grimly on. Even with Swiss criminal proceedings opened against him, Fifa sponsors demanding he disappear, and now with him finally banished from office altogether, the 79-year-old refuses to give up or admit defeat.
He has appealed, claimed his innocence, insisted he was not afforded due process, and could even return to office a few days before February's presidential election having served his suspension. An election which, with most of the leading candidates now banned, could yet be postponed.
Since June, a battle of wills has been raging between those who believe Fifa should be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed the chance to self-regulate, and the critics, who insist that, even if a reformist such as Prince Ali of Jordan becomes president, the governing body simply cannot be trusted long-term. They say it has proved itself not fit for purpose, and must be told what to do.
Never has the latter argument felt quite so compelling. Because football's administrators, it seems, will never learn.
- A man who having suggested he would vote for the US as 2022 World Cup hosts, then admitted he supported Qatar, a decision that forced football into an unprecedented rescheduling of the event, causing havoc for the European clubs and leagues he was meant to represent.
- A man whose son went to head up a Qatari sports kit company shortly afterwards - although Platini says that had nothing to do with how he voted.
- A man who is being treated as "between a witness and a suspect" by the Swiss criminal authorities over a "disloyal payment" he received from Blatter shortly before he voted for him to stay as president in 2011.
- A man who asks us to believe the reason for a nine-year delay in that payment was because Fifa could not afford to pay him the money, despite the organisation enjoying multi-million profits at the time (although he has yet to produce any paperwork to back up his defence).
- A man who is now suspended from all football activity, along with the man he used to advise - Blatter.
Platini has vowed to clear his name, and denies any wrongdoing.
But after all of that, and given how obviously football is crying out for a fresh start, one might have expected him to have withdrawn his candidacy to become Fifa president. To do what some would regard as the honourable thing in the wider interests of the game.
Instead, the former France international raged against the disciplinary process, condemning the allegations as "astonishingly vague", and submitted his candidacy papers anyway in a mood of "staunch defiance". In a bizarre statement, he hinted at being the victim of a conspiracy "to taint a lifelong devotee of the game", and described his suspension as "farcical".
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