Thirteen of the 14 member organisations taking part in today's extraordinary electoral General Assembly voted for Frattini to return as independent chair of the of the SIGA Council.

Mohammed Hanzab and Densign White were re-elected o the Council as as vice-chairs, with 13 and 12 votes respectively, and Alison Giordano, who also received 13 votes, has been appointed a vice-chair and was elected to the Council for the first time.

Eddie Marshbaum, with 12 votes, was re-elected to the Council and National Olympic Committee of Portugal director general João Paulo Almeida was the last person elected to the panel, with 13 votes.

All will serve four-year terms.

It will be Frattini's second term as chairman, following his initial election in 2017.

Frattini is a former Italian Foreign Minister and was awarded the Olympic Order in 2011.

However, Frattini's conduct on social media came under scrutiny in late 2020 when the Swiss Federal Tribunal upheld an appeal by Sun against the eight-year ban a CAS panel headed by the Italian had given Sun.

The highest court in Switzerland ruled that Frattini's impartiality in the case had been brought into question due to a series of anti-Chinese tweets.

The posts - some of which remain online - used racist terms to describe Chinese people involved in the trade of dog and cat meat.

"The choice of words and the repeated use of violent expressions is problematic in the specific case", said the Swiss Federal Tribunal in its reasoning for sending the case back to the CAS to reconsider.

"Some expressions refer to the skin colour of certain Chinese people he targets."

When the CAS heard the case for a second time, using a new panel, six-time Olympic medallist Sun was banned for four years and three months.

SIGA states its mission is to "provide global leadership, promote good governance and safeguard the integrity of sport through a set of universal standards operated by an independent, neutral and global body".

It's Council features two ex-officio members - chief executive Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros and the interim chair of its Youth Council, Taylor Green.

Karin Korb, an independent, has additionally be co-opted.

Korb represented the United States in wheelchair tennis at two Paralympic Games.

White is chief executive of the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation and Hanzab founder and chairman of the International Centre for Sport Security.

Marshbaum is director of sports integrity at integrity advisory firm Quest.

Following the Gerneral Assembly, Frattini said: "The COVID-19 crisis influenced the first term, but SIGA resisted and has always been able to follow its mission, flagging corruption and improving the awareness-raising for integrity in sports. 

"Diversity and inclusion are the keywords for the following term, as SIGA will build on the role of women in sport, on the opportunity to invest in the younger generations, and avoid leaving behind those who have disabilities."