Gaddafi has still to play in the league for Perugia

I first met Al-Saadi Gadaffi, in 1999 when the Libyan football team came to Harare to play Zimbabwe in a friendly match.

Libya was coming out of international political isolation at that time, and the football federation, with Al-Saadi recently installed as its leader, had been given a huge budget by Muammar al-Gaddafi's government.

Al-Saadi had a dual role of administrator and national team player.

The feeling was that he wasn't a great talent, but that it might be rather tricky for the coach not to pick him.

I watched him training, and he certainly looked fit.

But attempts to get an interview afterwards did not get far as his bodyguards swiftly closed in around him as I approached.

Meeting

A Libyan journalist travelling with the team offered to help me out.

Gaddafi is a footballer, sports administrator and businessman

Come to the hotel on Saturday evening at 1900 and I'll take you to him, he said.

I waited for three and a half hours in the hotel lobby before finally being summoned to see Al-Saadi.

After a thorough body search I was in the presidential suite and after another wait, Al-Saadi came in.

Despite the overwhelming security set-up, he came across as an unassuming man, soft-spoken.

As we sat across a huge conference table, he talked of what he saw as the injustice of the international exile that Libya suffered, his love of football, his dream of one day becoming Africa's best player, and his aim of making a big impact on football throughout the world.

Four years on, Al-Saadi has certainly achieved some of that.

With billions of dollars promised by his father's government, he is leading Libya's bid to co-host the 2010 World Cup.

He also launched a campaign to become president of the Confederation of African Football, but had to give that up, along with his prestigious seat on the board of Italian football club Juventus, when in June he began his career as a professional footballer with another Italian club, Perugia.

Drugs

He is yet to make his league debut for the club and was on the substitutes' bench at the game where he took a drugs test that detected a metabolite of the banned steroid nandrolone.

Al-Saadi insists that he is innocent and has vowed to continue his playing career with even more determination than before.

Oh, one other thing I forgot to tell you from my brief meeting four years ago with Al-Saadi.

He told me that he was planning to hire the Canadian Ben Johnson as his fitness coach.

A few weeks later the two had indeed teamed up.

Johnson was stripped of his the 100m Olympic gold medal that he won in 1988 for failing a drugs test, and was later banned for life for a repeat drugs offence.