A Winter World Cup? Gulati Is in No Hurry to Decide The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is about nine years away. A vote on whether to change the dates for that tournament - which is, by the way, about nine years away - has been scheduled for three weeks from now. If that timing seems abrupt, it is because it is. Sunil Gulati is one of 25 people on FIFA's executive committee who will ultimately vote on whether to change the tournament's dates (which are, it must be noted, nine years away) and shift the event out of Qatar's scorching summer heat. Gulati, the president of the United States Soccer Federation, has followed the lobbying on both sides of the debate. He has read the comments from top officials, including Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, who say a move to the winter is the only choice. He knows that Blatter plans to call for a vote at the next executive committee meeting, which begins Oct. 3. Gulati thinks that is wrong. And so, despite the fact that he has been on the most powerful committee in soccer for only four months, and despite the risk that he could be seen as the stereotypically loud American trying to shake up the FIFA establishment, Gulati says he plans to do everything he can to stop the vote from taking place. "I don't see at this stage, frankly, how I or any member of FIFA's executive committee could make a sensible decision," he said in an interview. We don't have enough information and there are too many questions. I don't see how anybody in a position of responsibility can take a position without some answers. When it was pointed out that a number of people, including Blatter and Michel Platini, who is the president of European soccer's governing body and also a member of FIFA's executive committee, have done just that by stating their desire to move the tournament, Gulati shrugged. "If the position I'm taking - which is that we need a lot more information - is rocking the boat," he said, "then I'm going to be rocking the boat." Much of the attention surrounding Qatar has focused on its climate. It is hot in the Middle East. In the summer, temperatures routinely reach 130 degrees. Even if the stadiums use advanced cooling technology - promised by the Qataris in their bid, but still untested - it is not a stretch to think there will be issues. No one disputes this. But that does not mean there are not other considerations. Gulati divides the concerns into four categories: how a change affects participants, including players, officials and fans; how it affects FIFA's economics (as it relates, for example, to television and marketing agreements); how it affects FIFA constituents, like the various domestic leagues and club teams around the world; and how it affects the Qatari organizing committee, which ostensibly bid on a summer World Cup. All of these factors are significant. Some observers have speculated that a change in dates could lead various entities - including the countries that lost out on the right to host the 2022 World Cup - to seek legal action. Corporate partners with FIFA might take similar paths, opening the organization to serious liability. Would the Qatari organizers indemnify FIFA against potential legal problems? "We don't know anything about that," Gulati said. But obviously that is important to know. Many of the European leagues, including England's globally popular Premier League, have come out against a move to winter because of the havoc it would cause with league schedules. The United States would not have that issue (Major League Soccer's season currently runs from spring to fall) but that does not mean there would not be conflicts with a switch to a tournament in November. As just one example, Fox and Telemundo bid about $1 billion to broadcast the World Cup in the United States in 2018 and 2022. The expectation was that those tournaments would be played in the summer. "There is another rather important sport that plays in the United States in the fall," Gulati said. How does a move affect us trying to promote the game if we're up against the N.F.L. or college football now? That's a reality we have to consider. And it's just one of a hundred things like that which need to be considered. Blatter and Platini, among others, seem to feel otherwise. Platini has taken public digs at the English officials questioning the logistics of a switch, chirping that "we respect your calendar for 150 years - for one month in 150 years you can change." Blatter appears uninterested in dissenting opinions, noting in an interview with the Web site Inside World Football that his organization is "the owner of the FIFA World Cup" and adding that he thinks "it is high time that Europe starts to understand that we do not rule the world anymore." At this point, it seems all but certain the World Cup will be staged in Qatar. A change of venue is unlikely, and while there are human rights concerns with Qatar - just as there are with the 2014 Olympics and the 2018 World Cup in Russia - that is not the main problem of the moment. Gulati, who was part of the failed bid from the United States to host in 2022, acknowledged that losing to Qatar stung. "It was a significant setback, personally and professionally and for our federation," he said. Still, he said he was not interested in looking back. "I am in a different role now," he said. There is a different question now. That question is simply when. Summer or winter? Winter or summer? It is a switch that makes all the difference, and that is why Gulati wants a little more time. Not years, he said. Maybe just a few months. A few months for a tournament that isn't for nine years. Even coming from FIFA's loudest critics, that hardly sounds unreasonable.