(London Post) The 45-year-old Italian has been given the support of UEFA’s football association to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president when elections are held on February 26.
Infantino will go up against former FIFA official Jerome Champagne, AFC president Sheikh Salman, South African Tokyo Sexwale and Prince Ali of Jordan. However, not all UEFA nations have decided to back Infantino with Malta, for example, giving its support already to Prince Ali who lost out to Blatter in the last FIFA elections.
Before the meeting, president of the English FA, Greg Dyke, was coy when asked whether the association would support Infantino. “I don’t think it’s for UEFA to say, ‘We support Gianni,'” Dyke said ahead of the meeting. “It’s for individual associations and we won’t make a decision for at least another week.”
Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the FIFA Ethics Committee, imposed eight-year bans on Blatter and Platini last year for a “disloyal payment” of 3.5 million euros made to the UEFA president in 2011. Platini has appealed to FIFA’s Appeals Committee and will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, if the ban is not overturned.
UEFA’s Executive Committee also confirmed that goal-line technology would be used at the 2016 European Championships, as well as in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League from the 2017/18 season.
