Gianni Infantino succeeds Blatter as Fifa president

Gianni Infantino has succeeded Sepp Blatter as president of world football's governing body Fifa. The Uefa secretary general polled 115 votes at the second count, 27 more than his closest rival and original favourite Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa.

Prince Ali bin al-Hussein (4 votes) and Jerome Champagne (0) finished third and fourth respectively.

An emotional Infantino told delegates that he was finding it hard to "express my feelings in this moment".

"I want to work with all of you together in order to restore and rebuild a new era of Fifa where we can put again football at the centre of the stage,” he said.

"Fifa has gone through sad times, moments of crisis, but those times are over. We need to implement the reform and implement good governance and transparency. We also need to have respect.”

The election was initially due to be fought between five candidates, but South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale withdrew before voting began in Zurich.

The first round of voting at the Fifa congress failed to determine an outright winner, though Infantino led with 88 votes, three more than pre-vote favourite Sheikh Salman.

A simple majority of more than 50% - 104 votes - was sufficient for victory in round two.

Fellow Swiss Sepp Blatter had led Fifa since 1998, but stood down last year and was later banned from football for six years for breaching ethics guidelines.

The former president issued a statement following the election, reading "I congratulate Gianni Infantino sincerely and warmly on his election as the new president.

"With his experience, expertise, strategic and diplomatic skills he has all the qualities to continue my work and to stabilize Fifa again.''

Infantino has his work cut out for him to restore Fifa’s image after criminal investigations in the United States and Switzerland resulted in the indictment of dozens of football officials and other entities for corruption, many of them serving or former presidents of national or continental associations.

Fifa has also been forced to investigate the awarding of several World Cup finals, especially the decision to grant the 2018 tournament to Russia and the 2022 finals to Qatar.

To help the new president tackle the corruption crisis, key reforms were passed before the election to help render it a more transparent and accountable organisation.

All salaries of Fifa officials will be disclosed, while a limit of four years has been placed on a president's term.

A new council to replace the current executive committee has also been introduced,