[13] Thus, sanctions can range from warnings and reprimands for lesser cases of misbehavior up to lifelong bans on taking part in any football-related activity worldwide.

[22] Since 1998, FIFA has implemented an increasing number of rules and regulations intended to modernize and improve the accountability and transparency of its governance processes.

[23] In the wake of accusations of bribery of referees in 2006, FIFA decided to create an Ethics Committee, with the aim of investigating allegations of corruption in football.

[24] In the beginning, the Ethics Committee was first headed by Sebastian Coe,[25] and between 2010 and 2012 by the former Swiss football player and attorney at law Claudio Sulser.

[26] However, it was not until 2011 that Mark Pieth, a criminal law professor at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and head of the so-called FIFA Independent Governance Committee (IGC), started to assess the FIFA-structures.

[27] Pieth subsequently published a report with suggestions for an indepth reform of the Ethics Committee in order to establish a modernized body for FIFA-internal investigations and jurisdiction.

Sylvia Schenk, sports adviser of Transparency International (TI), criticized that Pieth received payments from FIFA for his work.

[33] Roger A. Pielke, Jr., who also authored a publication on the accountability of FIFA,[34][35] stated in his blog The Least Thing that Pieth, or his Basel-based Institute of Governance, had received US$128,000 for his work[36] and could therefore not be regarded as acting independent.

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was criticized for fraudulent billing and producing hundreds of tons of waste from the building and usage of stadiums.

[41] Paul MacInnes of The Guardian continue to accuse The Ethics Committee of lacking decency and awareness to publicly recognize these problems.

[48] The committee's history with policy violations and human rights debates have attracted concerns that FIFA lacks the competency and discipline to address them.

A lack of consideration of human rights in the committee showed that, while the public recognized the difficulties with selecting Qatar as the next host, they were willing to look past these claims by the media/public.

[42] The conversation surrounding human rights violations started primarily in reference to Qatar's mistreatment involving migrant workers which make up 90% of its labor force.

[50] This is another public criticism that wasn't confronted despite the numerous complaints mentioning heat exhaustion and the countless other bids from countries that would be far more suitable as a host.

[54] In 2016, committee member Juan Pedro Damiani was being subjected to an internal investigation over the legal assistance he had provided as a lawyer to Eugenio Figueredo, a football official who had been charged by US authorities with wire fraud and money laundering, as part of the 2015 FIFA corruption case.

[62] Borbely and Eckert claimed that when ousted, they were in the process of investigating hundreds of cases and that their removal was a "setback for the fight against corruption" and that "meant the de facto end of Fifa's reform efforts".