Who is George Weah, Liberia’s 25th President?

George Weah a former professional footballer has won the Liberia presidential run-off with 61.5% of the vote.

According to the country’s electoral commission, Weah had taken 61.5% of the vote from 98.1% of Tuesday’s ballot cast.

The vice president Joseph Boakai garnered 38.5% of the vote.

Weah will succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to become president next month, the country’s first democratic transition in over 70 years.

Weah won the first round voting in October with 38.4% but failed to get the 50% needed to win outright. Boakai came second with 28.8%.

The former football star, 51, was brought up by his grandmother in Clara Town slum in Monrovia. He went ahead to rise against the odds to become a football legendary. He is the first and only African player to have won both FIFA's World Player of the Year trophy and the Ballon d'Or.

He played for Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Chelsea and Manchester City. His life is an inspiration to many who sees it as the rags-to–riches legend and one that gives them hope.

“I know in him we can get a better Liberia,” Domah Johnson, a supporter of his party, the Congress for Democratic Change was quoted by the Guardian. “With George, he will empower the youth, the women, and will develop the country.”

His campaign appealed to the youth vote, while incumbent Vice President Mr Boakai was likeable among the old.

This is the second time Weah has run for presidency in Liberia, the first being in 2005. He lost to the outgoing president Sirleaf.

In 2011 he came second as a vice presidential candidate. He is currently senator for Montserrado County in Liberia after being elected in 2014.

Mr Weah’s election is not without controversy. His running mate is Jewel Taylor, former wife of the warlord and ex-President Charles Taylor, who is serving a jail sentence in the UK for war crimes.