FIFA President Elections: Results, reactions

By EDIALE KINGSLEY

WE now have a new FIFA president. Gianni Infantino has been elected as the new FIFA president. Sepp Blatter’s scandalous era is truly over. He becomes the second successive Swiss president of FIFA, following Sepp Blatter, but we can only hope, he will bring the much needed transparency in the organization and will restore the image of the football’s highest governing body. Sheikh Salman was touted to succeed Blatter because of support he received from Asia and Africa, while Infantino only had the backing of UEFA.

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It was for the first time, voting for the FIFA presidential election had reached a second round since 1974, as none of the candidates received the required two-thirds majority in the first round. Gianni Infantino addressed the congress after he was elected FIFA President, “Dear friends, I cannot express my feelings in this moment. I told you I went through a journey, an exceptional journey, a journey which made me meet many fantastic people. Many people who love football, who live football, who breathe football every day, and many people who deserve that FIFA is highly respected. We will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA. I want to work with all of you together in order to restore and rebuild a new era of FIFA, where we can again put football at the centre of the stage. FIFA has gone through sad times, moments of crisis, but those times are over. We need to implement the reform and implement good governance and transparency. We also need to have respect”.

The new FIFA president promised to win back the lost respect through hard work, com