The Board of Palloliitto or the Finnish Football Association decided on Monday that first vice president Markku Lehtola is to take over the acting leadership of the organisation until its next general assembly.
Lehtola will step in to replace the newly-elected President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö, who has announced that he will step down from the role he has held since 2009 as President of Palloliitto.
The organisation’s next statutory general assembly will take place on October 13th-14th.
Sauli Niinistö replaced the long-servingPekka Hämäläinen at the helm of the Finnish FA in 2009, and in some footballing quarters there was disquiet at the time over a high-profile politician being "parachuted in" from outside the sport, presumably with a view to offering heavyweight lobbying support.
Niinistö himself may have felt in any event that the seat was an uncomfortable one, for shortly after his arrival the national team was thrown into disarray by bad results in the Euro 2012 qualifiers, leading eventually to the dismissal of the head coach Stuart Baxter and his replacement by Mixu Paatelainen.
The run of poor results also left a sizeable dent in the FA's budget owing to reduced enthusiasm among fans for attending home games.
At the same time, Finnish football has recently been coloured by match-fixing scandals in the premier domestic league, Veikkausliiga.
