‘You will be proud of what Fifa will do for football’: Infantino pledges new era after being named to replace Blatter

Gianni Infantino won Fifa’s presidential election on Friday and vowed to lead the scandal-tainted body into a new era as he faced immediate calls to ensure genuine reform.

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.

WATCH: Gianni Infantino elected Fifa president

“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 soccer’s governing body, dogged by a vast set of corruption scandals.

READ MORE: Fifa approves anti-corruption reforms ahead of vote for next president

Blatter, who many hold responsible for the culture of patronage and graft that plagued Fifa, congratulated Infantino on his win.

“With his experience, his capacities, his sense of strategy and diplomacy, he has all the qualities to continue my work,” Blatter said in a statement.

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.

Five candidates started the day in contention.