FIFA President Infantino celebrates in Beirut after receiving a Lebanese passport

BEIRUT (AP) — FIFA President Gianni Infantino received a Lebanese passport at the Interior Ministry in Beirut on Monday, months after he was granted citizenship by the country’s president.

Infantino, who is married to Lebanese citizen Lina al-Ashkar, thanked President Joseph Aoun at a meeting at the Interior Ministry where Infantino filed documents and had a photograph and fingerprints taken before being handed his new blue Lebanese passport.

Infantino also has citizenship in Italy and Switzerland.

“I’m very proud and very happy to be here in Beirut at the Ministry of Interior to finally get my Lebanese passport,” Infantino said in a video carried by local TV stations. “I love Lebanon.”

Lebanese women normally cannot pass their citizenship to their foreign husbands and children under Lebanese law. But Aoun made and exception for Infantino and granted him and his family members citizenship.

Lebanese men married to foreign women automatically pass their nationality to their children, while their wives become eligible for citizenship after being married for a certain period of time.

FIFA is the international soccer governing body.