At FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland, 45 year old
lawyer and UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino, emerged as FIFA
president.
Gianni Infantino won the FIFA president elections
ahead of Asian
Football Confederation, Sheikh
Salman, former FIFA executive Jerome
Champagne of
France and Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan. to become president
of the world football’s governing body.
Sheikh Salman had
been a favourite candidate to succeed Sepp
Blatter because
of the support he had from Asia and Africa, while Infantino had the backing of UEFA members.
But following a second round of voting, needing 104 votes to
win, Infantino polled 115 and was named FIFA
president until 2019 – the second successive Swiss president.
However, this is first time voting for the FiFA
presidential election had reached a second round since 1974, when João
Havelange of
Brazil became the first non-European president ahead of England’s Sir Stanley
Rous.
The 45-year-old lawyer and UEFA secretary general, Gianni Infantino, is from Brig in
the Valais region of Switzerland, less than six miles from Blatter’s hometown
of Visp.
His
acceptances speech after the cut.......