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| Gianni Infantino, the newly elected president of FIFA, sat on the reform committee, which structured the changes. Patrick B. Kraemer/European Pressphoto Agency |
A new era has begun, Mr. Infantino said, addressing fellow FIFA officials in a stadium here but surely hoping that United States prosecutors were listening from afar.
In their continuing case, the federal authorities in Brooklyn have depicted the Switzerland-based FIFA as a victim, hijacked by depraved leaders — corrupted but not corrupt. The organization hired top defense lawyers and crisis managers from the United States to share information with investigators and help advance that characterization in the nine months since charges were first unsealed.
Seeking to redeem faith in the sport, Mr. Infantino and the voting members of FIFA also wanted to send a signal on Friday to authorities in the United States and Switzerland still scrutinizing them: We will behave, and we will do so on our own.
“I do hope our friends in the United States will accept that FIFA has promised these reforms, is doing these reforms, and that they will let us work in peace,” Sepp Blatter, the longtime FIFA president whose tenure came to an inglorious end under the weight of the corruption scandal, said in an interview after the new rules passed.
Mr. Blatter, who is under criminal investigation in Switzerland, established a 13-person reform committee that spent four months shaping the new guidelines. Presenting the reforms to soccer officials on Friday, the head of the committee thanked Mr. Blatter.
The measures are modeled on best practices for big businesses, seeking to divorce FIFA’s commercial enterprise from its policy-making and to shift power away from a handful of individuals at the top.
The rules will limit the president’s time in office to three terms of four years; require the public disclosure of his pay and that of other executives; and stipulate that six women occupy top leadership jobs. Those standard corporate recommendations and others were presented as a package that passed with 89 percent approval from FIFA’s member countries, which number more than 200.
“FIFA had to agree to this,” said Stefan Szymanski, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. “The Department of Justice is much less likely to declare FIFA a corrupt organization now.”
As the United States’ investigation proceeds, some have speculated that a failure to enact safeguards against further crime could jeopardize FIFA’s place as a cooperating victim.
Referring to the soccer officials who voted for the reforms, Mr. Szymanski said: “These people didn’t suddenly have a conversion to honesty and fair dealing. They were told very clearly by the lawyers: This is do or die.”
Samir A. Gandhi, a member of FIFA’s reform committee and a lawyer for the firm Sidley Austin in New York, said the reforms were important to protect FIFA and its confederations from being sued by the United States.
“If you let an organization be used for fraud or criminality, you’re not a victim,” he said. “This isn’t just a signal to the government. It’s a signal to fans, sponsors and broadcasters.”
Most controversial among the new rules was the institution of term limits, according to Mr. Gandhi. “This is corporate bread-and-butter 101,” he said, acknowledging that critics thought the rules did not go far enough.
Some of the changes are symbolic, focused on changing perceptions through rebranding. FIFA’s notorious executive committee — 12 former members of which have been criminally charged — will be renamed the FIFA council, and the organization’s general secretary will take on the title of chief executive.
At the same time, the new council will grow to 36 members from 24, spreading power among more people.
Other changes are subjective while seeking to be specific; the rules call for “greater financial transparency,” mandating independent audits of all financial transactions.
“Bear in mind, Enron had allegedly independent auditors,” Mr. Szymanski said, referring to the energy company that went bankrupt after a fraud scandal.
FIFA’s reforms technically take effect in 60 days, but many of the new rules — like populating the council with 12 more people, six women among them — will hinge on the schedules of regional confederations and when they choose to elect those new leaders.
Mr. Gandhi said the reforms were simply a shell from which to start, both for FIFA and for Concacaf, soccer’s ruling body for North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Much of the corruption the United States described centered on Concacaf, which unanimously passed its own set of similar reforms on Thursday. Mr. Gandhi’s firm is advising the organization on matters including governance.
