Published On: Fri, Feb 26th, 2016

Gianni Infantino Wins FIFA Presidency in Second-Ballot Upset

FIFA President Gianni Infantino

FIFA President Gianni Infantino


LAGOS FEBRUARY 26TH (URHOBOTODAY)-Gianni Infantino, a veteran European soccer official, was elected Friday to a four-year term as president of world soccer’s scandal-plagued ruling body, replacing Sepp Blatter, who had run FIFA for 18 years.
The election of Infantino, a lawyer with Swiss and Italian nationality, was something of an upset since Bahrain’s Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa was considered the solid favorite heading into the balloting. Neither candidate got the required 138 votes — two-thirds of those cast — in the first round of voting.
In the second round only a simple majority was needed to win, and Infantino easily cleared that bar with 115 votes, 11 more than required. He becomes the ninth man to head FIFA in its 112-year history.
A respected executive who has been widely credited with strengthening both national team and club football in Europe, Infantino now faces the herculean task of trying to fix one of the wealthiest and most powerful sports organizations in history. FIFA, which manages the quadrennial World Cup in addition to other global soccer competitions, has been rocked by a U.S. Justice Department probe in which 41 people, including top FIFA officials, have been charged with corruption, fraud, bribery and other crimes in the last 15 months.
Blatter, who won a fifth term as president last May, promised to step down nine months after the first indictments were unsealed. He never got that chance. Last fall, FIFA’s ethics committee suspended him, forcing him from office. Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation of their own.
With that as a backdrop, the FIFA delegates meeting Friday in what was called an Extraordinary Congress, overwhelmingly approved a series of reforms before taking up the presidential vote.
The package, which FIFA said passed by a vote of 179-22 with six abstentions, calls for its executive committee to be expanded to 36 members, at least six of whom must be women. Term limits of 12 years, divided into three four-year terms, will be imposed on the roles of FIFA president and FIFA council member, the salaries of serving officials will be disclosed to the public and a new stakeholder committee will be created to “ensure greater transparency and inclusion” through broader representation of players, clubs and leagues.
Individual confederations and associations such as CONCACAF, which governs soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, are also required to comply with the new rules.
“We stand united in our determination to put things right, so that the focus can return to football once again,” said Issa Hayatou, the interim FIFA president who guided the reform measures through their approval. “The hard work of restoring trust and improving how we work begins now.
“This will create a system of stronger governance and greater diversity that will give football a strong foundation on which to thrive,” Hayatou said. “It will help to restore trust in our organization. And it will deter future wrongdoing.”
Los Angeles Times

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