Sepp Blatter’s 18-year reign of FIFA came to an official end on Friday.
Gianni Infantino was elected FIFA president after receiving a majority of the votes (115) in the second round, beating out Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan and Jerome Champagne.
In his closing speech ahead of the voting process on Friday, Tokyo Sexwale withdrew from the race, leaving only four candidates in the running. Each member association, excluding suspended Kuwait and Indonesia, cast its vote in two separate rounds.
Gianni Infantino received 88 votes in the first round — three more than Sheikh Salman’s total. Prince Ali — who U.S. Soccer voted for — received 27 votes, and Jerome Champagne only collected seven.
In the second round of voting, the president of the Asian Football Confederation finished second with 88 votes, while Prince Ali finished third with four votes.
Infantino will serve as FIFA president from 2016 to 2019.
What do you think of FIFA’s new president? What are you expecting from the world soccer’s governing body?
Share your thoughts below.
Blatter has announced his support. Says Infantino know his way around.
Well, I also liked the name Tokyo Sexwale. His victory would have assured a smile and chuckle from me every time I thought or read about FIFA.
Also, I hate to be the party pooper, but it’s pronounced “seh-HWA-leh”. And Tokyo isn’t actually his given name either.
We know… it doesn’t matter how you correctly pronounce it.
This is actually a pretty OK outcome. If you were going to rank the candidates by dedication to reform, it would have been 1. Prince Ali 2. Champagne 3. Infantino 4. Sexwale 5. Sheikh Salman. Sexwale was the most Sepp-like candidate. Sheikh Salman would have been even worse – smarter, more manipulative, more power hungry. We avoided the disasters. Infantino isn’t the reformer that Prince Ali or Champagne are, but he has a few things going for him. For one, he’s relatively young and more in touch with reality. Another is that he is focused on business, and not in the Jack Warner “our business is our business” way – more in terms of the bottom line. He knows that FIFA can make a lot more money than it does, and in this sense bribery and graft clog up the revenue machine. Being dedicated to an organization’s revenues isn’t the most ideal way to tackle a corruption crisis, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being dedicated to the individual revenues of yourself and your buddies. Also he actually just seems like a genuine person. I don’t think he quite grasps the desperate need for major reform the way that Prince Ali and Champagne do, but I don’t think things are going to backslide or quite be business as usual under him either. He’s not Blatter – he has sense and awareness. Honestly, I’m just relieved we didn’t end up with Sheikh Salman. I can’t stress enough what a nightmare outcome that would have been for the soccer world.
Hello. Please like me.
I will admit this is clever, and I chuckled…and I too regret that Sexwale was not elected, because seeing “Tokyo Sex Whale” memes pop up across the Internet would have been priceless.
Golden opportunity lost, I agree. “Infantino” has possibilities, but the Tokyo Sex Whale would have been unstoppable.
Very disappointed that FIFA will not be lead by a man named Tokyo Sexwale. On the other hand, I do now have a new backup SBI commenter name!
It scares me how nothing has really changed. I hope the USDOJ saw this coming and already has an indictment ready for this guy – from the village next to Blatter’s.
Mr. Bean?
A guy promising more “gifts” to tiny nations. Sounds familiar.
LOL.
A Blatter and Platini ally. Sure, why not?
Shows how clueless Gulati is that he always backs the losing horse.
may have been a sub-motive of a purposeful choice to distance from the winner, considering the USDOJ blew up the whole thing. I personally don’t think there is any influence back to US soccer fed., but Gulati may have wanted to ensure that through openly declaring for someone he knew was not going to win.
In a FIFA election being far from the winning horse is the correct place to be.
Sunil defiantly got what he wanted here. He represented and looked like the whip among the voters that swung from Ali to Infantino giving Infantino the win. idk if this guy is any better than anyone else but he certainly has worked for the attention of USSF & concacaf voters.
Your comment shows how clueless you are. Voting for Prince Ali in the first round and Infantino in the second was his plan all along, and both candidates knew it. Gulati engineered this thing about as much as anyone.
great! leave it to an Italian to fight corruption!!
He’s actually Swiss … just like our friend Sepp Blatter
You mean like all the 1000s of Italians who have been fighting – and sometimes dying – fighting the Mafia since before you were born?
The world doesn’t need the perpetuation of stupid stereotypes. Why don’t you dump a few of yours?
And voting in the most corrupt politician arguably in the world, Silvio berlusconi in time and time again? Take a chill pill, he’s referring to constant match fixing which the Italian league has a problem with.
Of the candidates, the winner was the biggest insider. We will see no significant changes in the corruption and backroom politics
Wasn’t the Sheikh a much more embedded insider? He was on the Executive Committee, right?
Yeah, Sheikh Salman was the biggest insider. Infantino has been a UEFA bigwig for a while, but Sheikh Salman has been vastly more involved with the inner workings of FIFA ever since he ousted Prince Ali from his vice presidency.
Sexwale pulls out at just the right time. figures.
😀
I don’t know anything about these candidates but this guy always struck be as being somewhat sincere and a good dude.
Interesting – this guy wants to expand the WC to 40 teams (which I hate) and have it hosted across a region (which could work I suppose although the only time the WC was held in more than one country apparently it was a logistical mess).
both candidates talked about that.. because it would get votes from the masses.. if they follow through will be interesting. USA 2026 sounds like a pretty logical time to enact such an idea.
I very seriously doubt it will be “USA 2026.” In his last act as president, Sepp Blatter held a vote to allow Europe to bid on 2026…and it was of course passed. It was exactly the sort of vindictive petty spite Blatter is known for, and of course he did it because it was the USA’s Justice Department that had kicked over his gravy train.
Whatever, it could be 2038 or 2042 before the USA gets a legit chance. I just hope to see another one sometime in my lifetime…not holding my breath.