NOW LET’S BID FOR 2030!

Infantino’s election as FIFA chief could spur FA to go for World Cup

WORLD football power stayed in Europe last night after UEFA’s Gianni Infantino won a shock victory in the FIFA presidential election.

The FA were so euphoric over having a FIFA president they can trust, there was even talk of England bidding for the 2030 World Cup.

Bahrain’s Sheik Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa had been the overwhelming favourite to become the first Arab leader of the world game. But Infantino’s greater charisma, his experience as UEFA general secretary and — most importantly — his offer to double FIFA’s aid to all national associations won the day.

The Swiss immediately promised to restore FIFA’s reputation following a corruption crisis that has taken the organisation to the brink. He said: ‘We will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA and everyone in the world will applaud us. FIFA has gone through sad times, moments of crisis, but those times are over. We need to implement good governance and transparency.

‘And we’re going to win back this respect through hard work and commitment and make sure we can finally focus on this wonderful game.’

FA chairman Greg Dyke said: ‘The era of bull**** is over at FIFA. We’ve got a reform package and a president we can trust. This is a new day, a new dawn. I think we will certainly try to win some tournaments. We will maybe go for the 2030 World Cup.’

FA chief executive Martin Glenn also hinted at a 2030 bid, adding: ‘If we feel there’s a FIFA organisation that is transparent, open, true to the kind of principles that we want, then obviously that would open wider dialogue.’

England’s David Gill, who sits on the executives of both FIFA and UEFA, called Infantino’s victory and the adoption of a wholesale reform package ‘a good day for football’.

Gill added: ‘The right person won. It’s been an excellent day all round, first with the reforms in the morning and then Gianni winning. There is a lot of hard work to do, but he has the energy and enthusiasm to take FIFA forward. The future is very positive.’

The first round of voting among the 207 FIFA delegates took two hours and 20 minutes to organise and saw Infantino win 88 votes to Salman’s 85 — much closer than anyone had predicted.

Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan was then in the position of kingmaker, and most of his 27 supporters were likely to plump for Infantino second time round, such is the enmity between the Prince and Sheik Salman, who manoeuvred the Jordanian off the Asian Football Confederation board.

The shift of 23 votes from Ali, plus four of former FIFA executive Jerome Champagne’s seven first- round ballots saw Infantino triumph in the second vote by 115-88.

The politicking continued until the final round-two ballot was cast.

FIFA executive member Sunil Gulati of the USA was busy on the floor imploring Ali’s supporters to switch to Infantino. These are said to have included all of Oceania’s 11 votes.

Gulati said: ‘We gave Gianni the assurance that when it mattered, we would be with him.’

Infantino, a 45-year-old lawyer who only stood after UEFA president Michel Platini was banned from doing so, will be welcomed at FIFA as a successful football operator who has proved himself during seven years running UEFA.

Coincidentally, he was born in the same Swiss canton of Valais as Sepp Blatter, his disgraced predecessor.

The alternative was for the heat to remain fully turned on FIFA because of serious human rights abuses in Bahrain. Sheik Salman was not personally involved but they would have haunted his presidency.

But money has always been the all-important conversation for most of the FIFA electorate.

And while Sheik Salman had promised not to mortgage FIFA just to win an election, Infantino was offering $5million (£3.6m) over four years to every one of the 209 federations — an age-old Blatter tactic.

Infantino told the voters: ‘ The money of FIFA is your money, it’s not the money of the FIFA president. The money of FIFA has to be used to develop football. Something is wrong if we cannot find one billion out of five billion. We can do it easily by looking at the cost structure of FIFA.’

But overall this was a second-rate election that failed to generate much interest outside the FIFA bubble. Farcically, South African candidate Tokyo Sexwale, who made the most memorable contributions during the two days of presentations, announced he was withdrawing from the contest in his speech just before the vote — and received a standing ovation.

However there is some justice in Prince Ali, whose request to use transparent ballot booths was refused, still having the pivotal say in the ballot.

“This is a new day. The era of bull**** is over”