The Swiss Gianni Infantino , the right hand of disabled Michel Platini UEFA, is since this afternoon FIFA president after winning the second round of voting, a total of 115 supporters, the Arab Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa , which he brought together 88.
Since the first vote of the day at Hallenstadion, Switzerland became clear that Infantino and Salman were the favorites to fill the position vacated by Sepp Blatter also disabled. However, in the second ballot the Swiss won almost all the votes had achieved in the first Frenchman Jerome Champagne and Prince Ali.
Now, with the head Infantino, FIFA hopes to regain lost credibility in recent months by corruption scandals that forced the resignation of Joseph Blatter.
The candidate who filed the UEFA becomes the ninth president of the institution and the successor to Blatter, just nine months after it obtained its fifth reelection.
The election, nearly six hours after the Congress approve "in full" the changes proposed by the Reform Committee , imposed the new president the task of leading the renewal of an institution that needs to urgently clean up its image to avoid drain sponsors.
The importance of a vote that was expected uncertain until the end spoke movements that made the frontrunners until the last minute.
If both Al Khalifa yesterday as Infantino toured by meetings of all confederations to convince undecided on the morning of the election would not leave anything to chance.
Protests against Salman
In anticipation of protests of human rights groups, who have denounced the presence of Sheikh Salman on the committee identified 15 athletes participating in the demonstrations of 2011, a small number of "fans" with perfectly made banners with the same photo Arab candidate, launched in favor of the Bahraini messages in the moments before.
These replaced them later, a small group of little less than a dozen opponents of the Bahraini regime displayed banners with photos of the tortured, while shouting: " Salman, dictator ."
Then, during the Congress, the decision to take the vote to Kuwait and Indonesia, two Asian federations suspended by government interference, which were supposed to support Al Khalifa- provoked protest Arab Emirates Jordan and asked, unsuccessfully, that that disqualification would vote. It was not a minor issue, because it reduced to a simple majority 104 votes with which one of the candidates should be imposed in the last round.
During the turn of speech of candidates, there were no surprises with Prince Ali and Jerome Champagne, which did not change the speech exposed during his campaign.
Al Khalifa directly attacked his rival, Infantino, without naming who accused him of promising impossible given the financial situation of FIFA. "I will not mortgage the FIFA to get votes , " he said. In response, Infantino displayed his facility for languages , with a message that began in Italian - "the language in which my parents instilled in me values , " he said, and was changing into German, French, Spanish, English, even, a little Portuguese.
Infantino wanted to reach each confederation addressing them in their predominant language. And also he responded to the Khalifa. "During my seven years in the UEFA, UEFA revenues tripled, when I talk about figures, believe me. If FIFA generates 5,000,000,000 why can not be distributed 1.2 billion ?".
The focus, however, stole the South African Tokyo Sexwale , the candidate who did not support nor the African Confederation, after saying he would not withdraw "because a soldier dies with his boots on" consumed 13 minutes of speech explaining their program, before announcing that it would not contest the election.
The other candidates remained after the first election, virtually ruled out Champagne (7 votes) and Prince Ali (27). Infantino rearmed morale to be first with 88 votes, three more than Al Khalifa, who arrived as a favorite to the final day.
And in the game of pacts, Infantino managed followers needed to overcome comfortably simple majority. Meanwhile, Sheikh did not increase more than three votes their expectations, Infantino garnered a total of 27 more.
His arrival to the presidency of FIFA, with 45 years ago to breathe European football, which feared an axle shift to the Asian emergency and you feel good to South America, who bet block by the Swiss candidate, despite doubts end of a federation.