Gianni Infantino won FIFA's presidential election and vowed to lead the scandal-tainted body into a new era as he faced immediate calls to ensure genuine reform, AFP reports.
The 45-year-old UEFA general secretary scored a convincing victory in the battle to replace the disgraced Sepp Blatter, whose 18-year reign ended with FIFA mired in unprecedented crisis.
Infantino, a Swiss-Italian, defeated Asian rival Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa in the second round of the vote of 207 members.
"FIFA has gone through sad times, moments of crisis, but those times are over," he said, asserting that a "new era" had begun for world's football's governing body, dogged by a vast set of corruption scandals.
Infantino got 115 votes in the election's second round while Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman, from Bahrain, got 88. They were just three votes apart in the first round.
Infantino's election was hailed by world figures such as Russia's President Vladimir Putin and federation chiefs.
Putin, whose country will host the 2018 World Cup, said Infantino comes into the post with "high authority."
