ORLANDO — Carlos Cordeiro ascended from U.S. Soccer Federation vice presidency to the president’s job Saturday, besting seven other candidates to lead a 105-year-old organization facing notable challenges in the wake of the men’s national team missing the World Cup this year.
He won on the third ballot, receiving 68.6 percent of the vote and easily eclipsing the 50 percent threshold. In the first two rounds, he had been locked in a close battle with Kathy Carter, a marketing executive whose soccer life began as a youth player in Northern Virginia.
Cordeiro succeeds Sunil Gulati, who, in the aftermath of the World Cup qualifying failure last fall, did not seek re-election.