Sports

Gianni Infantino re-elected as FIFA president for second term

Published

5 years ago

June 5, 2019

Gianni Infantino will remain as president of the world football governing body, FIFA, after he was re-elected as president for a second term on Wednesday.

The 49-year-old Swiss-Italian was re-elected unopposed until 2023 at Fifa’s annual congress in Paris as his first tenure, which began in 2016 had come to an end.

Infantino succeeded Sepp Blatter who was in charge for 17 years until he was banned amid a corruption scandal in 2015.

Infantino’s re-election was marked by a round of applause, after rules were changed earlier in the day to no longer require a vote from Fifa’s 211 members if only one candidate was standing.

“Nobody talks about crisis at Fifa any more or rebuilding it from scratch,” the Fifa boss said in a lenghty speech.

“Nobody talks about scandals or corruption, we talk about football. We can say that we’ve turned the situation around.

“This organisation has gone from being toxic, almost criminal, to being what it should be – an organisation that develops football and is now synonymous with transparency, integrity.”

Infantino, in his first tenure, was behind the expansion of the World Cup from 32 teams to 48 for the 2026 tournament, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Plans to bring the expansion forward to the 2022 World Cup were however abandoned last month.

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