Long-standing FIFA "critic" Andrew Jennings said that increasing pressure, including from Australia, over the "bizarre" choice of Qatar as 2022 World Cup host "could bring down FIFA and its embattled President Sepp Blatter," according to Tony Harper of FOX SPORTS. Jennings, whose '06 book "Foul!" and '10 BBC Panorama documentary that focused on how alleged FIFA corruption has "dogged Blatter’s regime," urged Football Federation Australia Chair Frank Lowy "to go further in condemnation of the decision." Jennings: "He knows what’s gone on, we all know what’s gone on. Nobody’s going to sue Frank Lowy, he’s one of the world’s richest men, and someone needs to say what needs saying and he’s in the best position to do it." Jennings said that Blatter "was in a desperate position, having to defend a decision he believes he does not support." Jennings: "Blatter’s problem is that he allowed this decision to be made by a group of old men who will likely be dead in 2022. But he’s behaved disgracefully in letting it happen. He should have kicked out the people who did that vote, and there should be a re-vote." FIFA’s exec committee will meet in Zurich on Oct. 3-4 and is "expected to push ahead with a plan to shift the date of the 2022 tournament." Jennings said that he "could not predict how the vote next month would fall, but was adamant a winter World Cup won’t happen." Jennings: "You can never predict what they will do." He added, "The bizarre decision to take the World Cup to Qatar defies the realities of the game. The temperatures in the summer are impossible and in winter it will not happen, period. The European leagues will not stand for it" (FOX SPORTS, 9/18).
