Canadian Sharara has held the role for 14 years and will serve another four-year term following today's election at the governing body's 2013 Annual General Meeting in Paris.

"I am extremely pleased that as expected, the delegates of the AGM understood the importance of my work and understood very clearly our future plans," he said.

"The overwhelming support for my team and myself gives us extra motivation to try as hard as possible to make sure table tennis is in the top five sports in the world."

Adham Sharara has been re-elected as President of the ITTF

An electrical engineer by trade, Cairo-born Sharara represented the Canadian national team from the age of 19, becoming the table tennis technical director for the Quebec region in 1973, before being appointed national technical director of the Canadian Table Tennis Association (CTTA) and the national team coach in 1980.

In the late 1980's, he was appointed as high performance director of the CTTA and as vice-president of ITTF for North America before climbing the ITTF ladder to take over from Hall of Fame inductee Xu Yinsheng as President in 1999.

The election had been steeped in controversy after Bosi accused Sharara of abusing his power and misusing ITTF funds, which led to the Canadian threatening to sue his only opponent in the race for the Presidency.

Sharara's executive committee was confirmed today as Shi Zhihao of China, Masahiro Maehara of Japan, Khalil Al-Mohannadi of Qatar, Cherif Hajem of Tunisia, Petra Sorling of Sweden, Thomas Weikert of Germany, Patrick Gillmann of New Caledonia and Melecio Eduardo Rivera of El Salvador.

Ma Long was one of three Chinese players to be inducted into the ITTF Hall of Fame

It was also announced at the meeting that the 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships will take place in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, with the 2018 tournament to be held in Halmstad, Sweden.

China's Ma Long, Ding Ning and Zhang Jike became the latest inductees to the ITTF Hall of Fame and the Caribbean island of Bonaire became the 218th national association, leaving table tennis with just two less national federations than volleyball, which currently has the most of any sport.

Sharara is expected to make his ITTF President's press conference at Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, which is currently hosting the ITTF World Championships, tonight.

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