Windhoek
Newly elected Fifa president Gianni Infantino has the right acumen required to restore the tarnished reputation of world’s football governing body, while his administration skills may yet prove to be the perfect panacea to take the organisation to greater heights, local football analyst Isack Hamata believes.
The Swiss-Italian Infantino, who was UEFA secretary-general until his election as president on Friday, defeated Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa in the second round of voting by 115 votes to 88.
The vote was decided only in the second round, after none of candidates managed to get the 50% required in the first round.
Although Namibians were kept in the dark as to who the Namibia Football Association’s (NFA) preferred candidate was for Friday’s election, sources at Football House have revealed that the NFA hierarchy was backing Sheikh al-Khalifa to become the 9th Fifa president.
NFA president Frans Mbidi, secretary general Barry Rukoro and honorary president John Muinjo attended the FIFA congress in Zurich.
NFA’s candidate, Sheikh al-Khalifa, received 85 votes in the first round, while his opponent and eventual winner, Infantino scooped 88 votes. Jordanian prince Ali bin al-Hussein, only garnered 27 votes, while former FIFA official Jerome Champagne had a paltry seven votes.
With none of the candidates managing the 159 threshold the vote was pushed into the second round where Infantino received 115 votes, thus replacing the deposed Sepp Blatter, while Sheikh al-Khalifa could only manage 88 votes in the second round.
“I strongly believe he is the right man for the job. Just take a look at how he has reformed UEFA within just nine years at the organisation. Today UEFA is one of the best administered football entities and its ever growing reputation bears testimony to Infantino’s overall input as secretary general”, Hamata opined.
“African football associations should pray that Infantino keeps to his election manifesto, in which he made grand promises. Infantino stated in his manifesto that he will give every national association an amount of around N$75 million every four years for football development and around N$600 million to each of the six continental football bodies. Now that’s serious reform and development, which is something everybody wants to hear,” adds Hamata.
Infantino had also promised to look at expanding the number of World Cup teams from 32 to 40, hinting that Africa’s representation at the World Cup will be upped from the current five places.
“Additional to the increment of the World Cup teams, Infantino has promised to take the World Cup tournament to various countries, instead of just one. That means for example, if South Africa were to be granted another opportunity to host the World Cup, some of the matches could be played in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho, which is also a great thing I believe,” Hamata noted.