Gianni Infantino is Fifa president. A surprise victory but by no means an accident

Mr Infantino’s victory in Fifa’s emergency election has come as a shock

Gianni Infantino has been named the new FIFA president during an extraordinary FIFA congress in Zurich (AFP)

A bald, career football administrator from Switzerland has been elected President of Fifa, and we are led to believe that everything has changed.

Gianni Infantino’s victory in Fifa’s emergency election has come as a shock. In the six months since the U.S. Department of Justice detonated a bomb under it, Fifa’s scattered smithereens have talked all the right talk on reform, of good governance, on rebuilding itself for the future. But this was an election that took place with its institutionally corrupt structures very much intact, and as such a Bahraini Sheikh with very little interest in football, and who stands accused of torturing players from his own country was expected to win with ease.

The threatening legal letters that arrive in their hundreds every day at media organisations all round the world all point out that the Sheikh “aggressively deny” that he ever did what was asked of him, namely to identify among the pro-democracy campaigners of 2011 anyone from the country’s sporting elite, so that they might be made an example of.

Whatever the truth, on the day that Fifa had to take a giant leap towards restoring its image or face extinction, human rights campaigners lined the streets outside Zurich’s Hallenstadion, holding up posters of beaten up Bahrainis. It’s possible they changed a few minds.

There is no great reason to imagine the ‘Fifa family’, as it likes to call itself, is any less malign an organisation than ever. But with 24 of its 37 sponsorship slots lying open, and facing legal bills of a reported £7m a month, in the quiet silence of the voting booth, evidently enough of them decided that change was needed. That a President who had never even been accused of torture, might be an advantage when it came to luring back the corporate franc.

His track record at Uefa is one of protecting the interests of the richest clubs. (Getty)

There will be consequences. Mr Infantino, the Secretary General of Fifa’s European Confederation, known as Uefa, was only ever meant to be a placeholder. Had Michel Platini, his President, been cleared of wrongdoing in time to re-enter the race, Infantino would have stepped aside. That didn’t happen, and now Fifa has an accidental President. Though his promise to return 5 million dollars of Fifa money to all of its nations to spend on football development renders it rather less of an accident.

His track record at Uefa is one of protecting the interests of the richest clubs. They do not only take the most money, they also generate the most. Among his fiercest critics throughout the campaign was a Frenchman, Jerome Champagne, a former diplomat and Fifa official who argued forcefully that football must not be run in the interests of rich and powerful Europe. The fear that Europe would do just that was enough to make a Bahraini Sheikh who didn’t even bother to attend the World Cup Final in Brazil the frontrunner. It was for this reason that the African Federation didn’t even back its own man, an anti-apartheid activist who was jailed with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island.

Sepp Blatter eventually stood down saying he did not feel he had a mandate from ‘the whole of football’, from its millions of fans. Mr Infantino has pledged to increase the World Cup from 32 team to 40. It will fundamentally alter, and the eyes of the average fan, damage the tournament - Fifa’s crown jewel.

Earlier in the day, Fifa’s delegates voted through extensive reforms aimed at last introducing good governance, functional management structures, salary disclosure for top executives, and other such things that have long been expected of such entities as a small chain of toy shops.

It will only succeed in reforming itself once it stops being a magnet for the worst kind of people. By voting Infantino not Salman, Fifa has staved off its endgame, at least for the time being. It has long been argued the organisation will only have restored its credibility once nobody knows who its President even is. In Gianni Infantino it has taken a sizeable step towards that future.