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 Blatter spoke to more than 400 people at the University of Basel,
where a student group has been preparing proposals on how FIFA
should address the scandal.
The disgraced FIFA head appeared at the event with Luis Moreno
Ocampo, a former International Criminal Court prosecutor who accused
the 80-year-old Swiss citizen of turning a blind eye to corruption
within regional soccer organizations.
Dozens of officials, including former members of FIFA's executive
committee, have been indicted in the United States and Blatter has
been banned for six years by its ethics committee.
"I regret I have not done enough to bring back FIFA on the right
track," Blatter told the meeting. But he insisted that while he led
FIFA, the actions of leaders of regional soccer organizations did
not fall under his purview.
"Those things they did within their confederations," he said. "I
don't have any power to intervene in their confederations."
 Blatter was banned from soccer activities for ethics violations in
December along with Michel Platini, a former French national player
who rose to become head of the European football association UEFA.
The pair were suspended in October pending an investigation into a 2
million Swiss franc ($2.07 million) payment to Platini that FIFA
made to European boss Platini in 2011.
Platini has said the payment was for work he did as a FIFA advisor
between 1999 and 2002 and the nine-year delay in payment was due to
FIFA's financial situation.
Blatter was unapologetic about the payment, saying it was an
unwritten "gentleman's agreement," though he conceded the
transaction should have been documented earlier.
"This is a debt, and we paid the debt," he said. "Perhaps it should
have been indicated at the very beginning that we had something due
to him. But this is an administrative and financial procedure and
this had nothing to do with ethics."
Blatter appealed his six-year ban to the Court of Arbitration for
Sport in Lausanne in March, seeking to have the penalty revoked.
Platini has also appealed to this court.
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Ocampo, now a Harvard University professor, said Blatter was
supposed to be an example for world soccer. "The problem is his
silence," he said. "As president of FIFA, he had to be an example.
Even if he was not involved, why was he silent?"
The two-hour-long event was interrupted by protests including from
people shouting "FIFA must go" and a banner reading "Slave Labor", a
reference to Qatar's stadium building ahead of the 2022 World Cup
that has been criticized by groups including Amnesty International
for human rights abuses.
They were removed by security.
FIFA said last month it paid Blatter 3.63 million francs last year,
publishing his salary for the first time under new governance
regulations.
FIFA also announced it lost $122 million in 2015, its first deficit
since 2002, attributing that mainly to the costs of battling the
worst graft scandal in its history.
In February, FIFA elected Gianni Infantino, a former UEFA general
secretary, to replace Blatter.
He has vowed to lead FIFA reforms, but Swiss police raided UEFA
headquarters this month to seize information about a contract
disclosed in the Panama Papers that he signed. He has denied
wrongdoing.
(Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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