FIFA has been without a head for quite some time, once Sepp Blatter received an 8-year ban from the world’s most corrupt sporting organization for being extra corrupt even by FIFA standards. Well, you can’t be banned from an organization and also the president of the organization, so FIFA’s latest congress gathered in some sort of supervillain-like lair to select a new leader. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the leading candidate, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of the Bahrain Royal Family, but a relative outsider. Gianni Infantino was elected president of FIFA during a surprising election in Zurich, Switzerland.
Infantino takes over for the controversial Sepp Blatter, former FIFA president who was forced out of the position after a massive, billion-dollar corruption scandal made him poison to sponsors. Sponsors, of course, are the people who provided the money that went towards all those wonderful bribes. When Coca-Cola calls you troublesome, well… then you know you’re in trouble, no matter how easily you win re-election.
Infantino won the voting in the second round with a simple majority of 104 votes; Sheikh Salman came in second place with 88 votes. An impressive 207 of FIFA’s 209 member nations voted; Kuwait and Indonesia are currently suspended.
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