Hire people to investigate charges of corruption until they seem to be getting too close to the real story — then fire them without explanation, assuming the public has a short memory. Sounds like a story out of Washington, D.C., but this time it’s happening to one of the largest sporting organizations in the world: FIFA.

FIFA is the Fédération Internationale de Football Association; it’s the group that manages the international soccer World Cup and a whole lot more. You might not have watched it, but plenty of other people have. The FIFA World Cup is the biggest single sporting event in the world, and over a billion people worldwide viewed the last World Cup, which is held every four years.

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Not only that, but the organization also manages the FIFA Women’s World Cup, The FIFA FUTSAL World Cup, FIFA CLUB World Cup, and under-17 and under-20 international leagues. Projected organizational revenue for the 2015-2018 period is $5.65 billion.

That’s a lot of money. And as history demonstrates time and again, where there’s a lot of money, there’s often a lot of corruption. FIFA is actually infamous for being corrupt and has had a cloud of mistrust floating over it for many years. You can argue that it’s inevitable, since people love betting on sports — and when you manage the most popular sporting events in the world, there’s a lot of temptation to profit from the games and their outcome, too. But none of that justifies criminal activity.

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Yet FIFA is so deep in the muck, there are “timelines of corruption” you can find online. In 2014, Swiss police arrested 14 FIFA executives in a dawn raid, at the request of the U.S. government. FIFA President Sepp Blatter was also placed under criminal investigation by Swiss authorities as they referenced a 24-year history of racketeering, wire fraud, and criminal money laundering by the organization and its staff. Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in official Department of Justice public statements that the corruption “spans at least two generations of soccer officials….”

Attempts to clean up the organization have been ongoing for years, starting with the effective ouster of FIFA President Blatter. Last year the organization also adopted a “Transparency First” policy to stop individuals and national groups from trying to hide graft and embezzlement.

More importantly, FIFA assigned Cornel Borbely and Hans-Joachim Eckert to run an ethics investigation within the sprawling, multinational corporation. That is, at least until this week — when the organization suddenly and without warning effectively parted ways with both individuals and all but two members of the ethics committee. The two investigators said they had “hundreds of cases” they were working on, and all of them now must be put aside until FIFA chooses a new team of investigators.

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FIFA has said that the Governing Council has identified two replacement investigators, but they’ll be starting from scratch, an effective obfuscation technique that ensures things move glacially toward the touted transparency goal. Weirdly, FIFA cast further doubt on the change of investigators with a statement that the new investigators “better reflect the geographic and gender diversity that must be part of an international organization.”

“Does this mean an end to the reform process?”

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After years of FIFA corruption investigations, it’s no surprise the soccer world is barely reacting at all to the latest news. Pitch Talk asked, “Does this mean an end to the reform process?” Yet most sports news outlets and fans seem to be ignoring the situation, wanting instead to enjoy the games and the lead-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. They don’t want to worry about who’s clean at corporate headquarters.

FIFA’s dismissal of Borbely and Eckert nevertheless brings up troubling questions about the need for autonomy and independence in corruption investigations.

Transparency isn’t just a good idea; it’s necessary for people to really trust an organization. And when there are allegations of misdeeds, trust is critical. The alternative is just a red card away from collapse.

Dave Taylor, based in Boulder, Colorado, has been writing about consumer electronics, technology and pop culture for many years and runs the popular site AskDaveTaylor.com.