Gianni Infantino Emerges FIFA President

    

Swiss Gianni Infantino has been elected the 9th FIFA President after an election on Friday in switzerland bythe world Governing body, beating Bahrain  Sheik Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa of Bahrain.
Infantino received 115 votes while Khalifa got 88 votes


Brief Profile of Infantino

Name: Gianni Infantino

Age: 45

Nationality: Swiss-Italian

Background: A lawyer by training, later an administrator in a university department and then a UEFA suit since 2000.

Key manifesto pledge: Increase the World Cup to 40 teams. 

PROFILE

Gianni Infantino will wake up on Saturday morning to begin his first day’s work as the most important man in world football and could be forgiven for thinking he’s the luckiest bloke on the planet.

Six months ago he had no intention whatsoever of running to replace Sepp Blatter, and was contentedly pottering along as general secretary of UEFA. He only entered the race to keep the seat warm for his continent in case Michel Platini had to withdraw for any reason. Of course Platini wasn’t just forced to withdraw, he was booted out of football for six years for accepting a £1.3m disloyal payment from Blatter.

That left Infantino, a multi-lingual family man with a wife from Lebanon and kids, as UEFA’s horse in the race, but still an outsider behind odds-on favourite Sheik Salman. But in the face of those odds he spent the last two months jetting around the world on €500,000 (£394,000) of UEFA funding, drumming up support.

One key promise to the world’s 209 FAs has been straight from the Blatter playbook: promising them money, or £5m each every four years, a huge increase on the sums they get now. And how it worked. He will not be short of a few pounds himself now, either. Blatter’s salary, never yet disclosed, is understood to have been around £5m a year, plus lavish expenses, and even in a new era, Infantino can expect a huge pay packet to reflect his new status. A fan of Inter Milan, he will certainly be able to travel in greater style to the San Siro if he chooses.

A Swiss-Italian, Infantino’s home village is Brig in the Swiss canton of Valais. Blatter lives in the next village, Visp, a three-minute drive away.