Siem, who was previously the chief executive of the Premier Soccer League in South Africa, has been selected by President Gianni Infantino to oversee the reforms and the administration structure within the scandal-hit organisation.

The 55-year-old will begin work in the President’s office immediately, a spokesperson for FIFA has confirmed.

“I’ll work on reforms, then on streamlining FIFA,” Siem said.

“It’s a privilege.

“It could not be better timing.”

Siem, a former journalist, has previously been full of praise for Infantino’s predecessor and fellow Swiss Sepp Blatter, who had his eight-year ban from the game for a series of ethics breaches reduced to six in February.

The Norwegian described the fallen President as a “role model” and claimed Blatter had “held the football family together” when the former head of the governing body was forced to resign in the wake of a series of arrests of prominent FIFA officials on corruption charges.

“I am very happy to have Kjetil Siem aboard,” Infantino told the Norwegian FA’s website.

“He has international experience and has shown the kind of qualities I need around me in efforts to reform FIFA.”

Siem will have a key hand in the reform process, initiated by Infantino in order to restore the shattered reputation of world football’s governing body, and will work closely with the President on a day-to-day basis.

The reforms themselves came under fierce criticism during last week’s FIFA Congress in Mexico City after the 209 Member Associations who were eligible to vote unanimously passed a measure which handed the newly-branded FIFA Council the ability to sack key officials at the helm of its independent committees.

The move went largely unnoticed among the Congress but effectively gave Infantino more power than even Blatter had enjoyed during his 17-year tenure at the helm.

It meant the likes of Ethics Committee Adjudicatory Chamber judge Hans-Joachim Eckert and Investigatory counterpart Cornel Borbély could be stripped of their positions based purely on the decision of the 37-strong Council.

The passing of the measure led to the resignation of Audit and Compliance Committee chair Domenico Scala, a key cog in the reform process, and dealt a severe blow to Infantino’s short reign in the FIFA hotseat to date.

Swiss-Italian businessman Scala claimed the u-turn meant the committees were “deprived of their independence”.

FIFA responded by labelling his claims as “baseless and unfounded”.

Siem's appointment comes after Infantino shocked the FIFA Council by hiring Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura of Senegal as the organisation's secretary general, announcing his decision less than an hour before the start of the Congress.

The United Nations veteran became the first-ever female and first non-European to land the role but her selection also attracted criticism due to her lack of experience in football.