GIANNI Infantino has been re-elected FIFA president unopposed at the congress of world football’s governing body in Paris as he claimed to have turned the organisation from being “toxic and almost criminal” back to its core values.
Reuters reports that Infantino’s re-election was marked by a round of applause from the congress after the statutes were changed earlier in the day to no longer require a vote if there was only one candidate for the position.
The 49-year-old Swiss-Italian lawyer now has a four year mandate to try and accomplish his grandiose plans for football which were partly frustrated in his first term.
He has been in charge of FIFA since February 2016, after succeeding Sepp Blatter in the wake of a damaging corruption scandal that Infantino claimed the body had now shaken off.
Infantino said FIFA’s previously precarious financial situation was now looking rosy with the organisation’s budget increased from $7.5 billion to $9.7bn and reserves up from $1.5bn to $4.2bn.
Infantino claimed 11 areas of progress during his tenure, from financial health, women’s development, the fight against racism and a scandal-free 2026 World Cup bidding process.
However, he said the implementation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system had been his major triumph.
