User:Mr. Lestah/FIFA Ethics Committee History

Article Draft: FIFA Ethics Committee History
The FIFA Ethics Committee has a history of corruption and controversy. 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. From 2014 and on, pressure built as the public and the media recognized inconsistencies and policy violations in FIFA-run tournaments. The FIFA Ethics Committee struggles, according to Sahiba Gill of "Whose Game? FIFA, Corruption, and the Challenge of Global Governance", to understand why its past reforms and public addresses don't suffice, and why they should ultimately resort to complete public transparency.

The ethics committee continues to be accused, by Paul MacInnes of The Guardian, of lacking decency and awareness to publicly recognize these problems. One problem that was recognized by the committee in 2014, was the bribery involving referees receiving expensive watches from Brazilian higher-ups. A document from the United States Department of Justice described in full detail the sentencing of nine FIFA officials and five FIFA executive. Not only was this blatant and beyond face-saving, but was detrimental to the tournament and its no-tolerance policies against bribery. Scholars estimate that FIFA's past two decades of corruption totals around $150 million. Even though FIFA is governed by Swiss law, authorities there have largely ignored the allegations toward FIFA and its ethics committee until confronted by U.S. authorities in 2015.

In 2010, Qatar was chosen to be the first Middle Eastern country to host a World Cup. Not only was this debated and controversial because of law differences, but also because of well-documented human rights atrocities. Sepp Blatter, former president and president at the time of selection, was quoted saying that "It was a bad choice". Despite this, the FIFA Ethics Committee gave the seal of approval on Qatar as the 2022 World Cup host.

The FIFA Ethics Committee was put in place to police and regulate foul play and poor decisions made by FIFA representatives. 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. Qatar's recent history with media claims of tolerating human rights atrocities and having a disregard for FIFA's policies, proved a difficult task for FIFA to handle and cover up. FIFA announced its first human rights policy in 2017 following the decision for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.

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. In addition to human rights violations, the FIFA Ethics Committee gave Qatar the go ahead despite the controversy surrounding its temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) during the summer months. 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.

Speaking on Qatar's questionable behavior, Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the adjudicatory arm of FIFA’s ethics committee, mentioned that “the effects of these occurrences on the bidding process as a whole were far from reaching any threshold that would require returning to the bidding process, let alone reopening it”.