FIFA President, Infantino Re-Elected For Second Term

Gianni Infantino has been re-elected for a second term as President of football’s World governing body, FIFA.

The 49 year old will remain as FIFA President till 2023 as he faced no opposition in the elections held at Fifa’s annual congress in Paris.

The Swiss-Italian succeeded Sepp Blatter in 2016 and has made a number of positive changes since he took charge including increasing the number of teams at the 2026 World Cup and proposing key changes to the Club World Cup.

Sepp Blatter was FIFA’s President for 17 years until he was banned amid a corruption scandal in 2015.

Gianni Infantino’s re-election was celebrated by a roaring round of applause after some rules changed earlier in the day meant that votes from FIFA 211 were not required if only one candidate was standing.

Infantino talked up the relative calm of his first term in charge compared to what he met on ground.

“Nobody talks about crisis at Fifa any more or rebuilding it from scratch,” he said.

“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.”

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The 49 year old and former UEFA general secretary was responsible for the expansion of the teams that compete in the World Cup to 48 from 32 for the 2026 edition of the tournament which will be taking place in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Plans to bring the development to the 2022 World Cup have failed and have been abandoned last month.

Infantino’s plans of expanding the Club World Cup in 2021 to 21 teams has also been approved in spite of protestes from top European clubs who are looking to boycott the tournament.

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