Sepp Blatter is not a king. He is not a chancellor or a viceroy and he is, most assuredly, not a congressman or people’s representative.

Technically, Blatter is a president, the president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. To use that label alone, though, is to sell short the dominating (if not domineering) stature with which Blatter rules. Think of it this way: how many people can arrive in virtually any country with a minimum of pomp or protocol and then request an audience with the head of state, and receive one?

Blatter can. (And he has. In the past few months he has met with the president of Cuba, the prime minister of Guinea and the president of South Africa.) Such is the influence of soccer around the globe. In more private moments, Blatter has likened FIFA to a sovereign nation. He may not be so far off: after all, FIFA has its own flag and anthem. And it has, in Blatter, an outspoken and commanding figurehead who has led it through periods of prosperity, and a fair bit of shame and scandal, too.

In nearly four decades with FIFA, however, Blatter has never overseen an issue as hotly debated as the one in front of him now. Beginning Thursday in Zurich, Blatter will preside over a meeting of FIFA’s executive committee, which consists of 25 voting members who essentially make soccer’s most important decisions. If Blatter has his way, one of the issues called for a vote will be whether to shift the 2022 World Cup in Qatar from its traditional summer schedule to the relative cool of late fall and winter in the Middle East.