Gianni Infantino new FIFA president

Gianni Infantino won the FIFA presidency, perhaps the most powerful position in sports.

Mr. Infantino prevailed in an upset, as FIFA’s voting members chose him, a Swiss administrator, to follow the suspended Sepp Blatter, who was once just a Swiss administrator himself, and try to lead global soccer out of its darkest period. Mr. Infantino, 45, becomes just the ninth president in FIFA’s 111-year history, a reality that is symbolic of its long-embedded resistance to change.

“A new era has been started as we speak,” Mr. Infantino said. “You will be proud of FIFA. You will be proud of what FIFA will do for football.”

The long-derided executive committee — notorious for decades of scandals, bribery, and political intrigue — will be replaced by a 36-member FIFA council that must include at least six women.

The balloting that led to victory for Mr. Infantino, who served for more than six years as secretary general of European soccer’s governing body, may have quietly yielded another winner in addition to Mr. Infantino. In the aftermath of the election, when Mr. Infantino was greeting well-wishers with a dazed look on his face, numerous officials from other national federations stopped at the opposite end of the dais. That was where Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer and a member of FIFA’s executive committee, was sitting.

Mr. Gulati and the rest of the U.S. Soccer delegation had been seen darting around the floor of delegates between the first and second ballots, working to swing votes in favor of Mr. Infantino, who gained a staggering 27 votes from one ballot to the next. Afterward, many soccer officials pointed to U.S. Soccer’s role in the result — an important development because the full congress votes on World Cup hosts and U.S. Soccer is likely to bid during Mr. Infantino’s tenure to host the 2026 World Cup.

“I think it’s a good day for the sport,” Mr. Gulati said. “We have a president we think very highly of and respect.”