FIFA picks Fatma Samoura as first female secretary general

Read more about FIFA’s newly appointed Secretary General Fatma Samoura – https://t.co/lZ2YITzaew

— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) May 13, 2016

Infantino: ‘Bullet-proof’ Cup selection

Infantino also welcomed the appointment of Canadian soccer federation chief Victor Montagliani as the new president of the North and Central American and Caribbean football confederation (CONCACAF), whose previous three leaders left office under the cloud of corruption allegations.

FIFA officials meeting in the Mexican capital formally implemented governance reforms that were adopted at an extraordinary congress in February.

The measures include term limits, transparency in salaries, reinforcing integrity checks of council members, and renaming the disgraced executive committee as the council and pruning its powers.

The congress also approved a 2015-2018 budget that increases development aid to each football association from $400,000 (354,000 euros) to $1.25 million per year.

FIFA, meanwhile, resumed this week the process to select the host of the 2026 World Cup, which had been frozen since last year over claims of misdeeds in awarding the tournaments to Russia for 2018 and Qatar for 2022.

“After all the issues, or criticisms, or whatever, which happened around the last World Cup bidding process, it is absolutely crucial for FIFA’s credibility that we have a bullet-poof bidding process in place for 2026,” Infantino said.

He noted that human rights requirements will be examined during the process for the first time and that bidders that fail technical requirements will be excluded.

But the scandals keep haunting world football.

On Monday, Infantino’s former boss, Michel Platini, said he will step down as head of European football body UEFA after failing to overturn his ban from all football-related activity over allegations that he received a dubious two million Swiss franc ($2 million, 1.8 million euros) payment from FIFA.

New members

In other decisions, the congress reinstated Indonesia in international competitions but maintained the suspensions of Kuwait and Benin over government interference in the sport.

FIFA also admitted Gibraltar and the former Serbian province of Kosovo, taking the world body to 211 members and entitling them to participate in 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

Serbia vowed to legally challenge the inclusion of Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008, a decade after a bloody conflict.

FIFA’s executive originally rejected Gibraltar’s bid, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ordered that the congress take a vote on the British territory, which is also claimed by Spain.