European football administrator Gianni Infantino was elected the ninth FIFA president on Friday in Zurich. The 45-year-old succeeds Sepp Blatter, who was banned by the world football governing body after being found guilty in an ethics investigation. Infantino won the second round of voting by 27 votes after the first proved inconclusive.
The Swiss-Italian general secretary of the Union of European Football Associations had entered the race only when his boss Michel Platini was suspended and then banned for six years for accepting a "disloyal payment" from Blatter in 2011. Infantino faces a stiff challenge to restore FIFA's reputation following the corruption saga surrounding the disgraced duo.
The other contenders for the top post were Jordan's Prince Ali Al-Hussein, vice-president of FIFA; Bahrain's Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation; and France's Jerome Champagne, a former FIFA executive. South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale was also in the fray, but he withdrew before the first round of voting. The final vote tally in the second round read 115 votes for Infantino, 88 votes for Sheikh Salman, four votes for Prince Ali al-Hussein and zero for Jerome Champagne.
In his manifesto, Infaninto had pushed for increasing the number of teams at the FIFA World Cup from 32 to 40. Following his election win, he said, "We need to implement the reforms, but we also need to have respect, the respect that the entire world owes to football, and make sure that finally, once again, we can focus on this wonderful world that is football."
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