Football Australia has thrown its weight behind those who want to remove FIFA potentate Sepp Blatter and will back his challenger Prince Ali of Jordan in the scheduled Fifa elections due on Friday.

The move will be welcomed in Australia, where criticism of Blatter and the FIFA culture has been vociferous.

Frank Lowy and his executives will still face renewed questioning about the Australian bid for the 2022 World Cup, but his supporters and the Australian football community will be glad to see that this country has joined those wanting to end the Blatter regime.

In a statement issued after he landed in Zurich on Thursday evening, Australian time, Lowy said: "FFA believes that profound change within FIFA is needed as soon as possible to address issues of governance and transparency.

"This belief will be reflected when Australia casts its vote in the Presidential election, should it proceed on Friday in Zurich.

"The Board of FFA has reviewed the manifesto for change proposed by Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein and believes it provides the basis for a fresh start for FIFA."

Lowy flew into the eye of a storm in the wake of several high-profile arrests as allegations of bribery, fraud and corruption will force an investigation into Australia's failed bid for the 2022 World Cup.

Australia's close dealings former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, one of the numerous high-ranking FIFA powerbrokers arrested, will be scrutinised. As will Lowy's conversations with disgraced FIFA executive-turned FBI informant Chuck Blazer.

Warner was given $462,000 worth of Australian taxpayers' money to support football development in his country  - Trinidad - as the FFA chased his influence to gain supporters as it campaigned for the 2022 tournament. Warner voted for Qatar, a nation with no football history, which secured the votes to host the tournament.

The money was allegedly "misappropriated" from the accounts of CONCACAF (the body that controls FIFA's Caribbean and North and Central American regions) into which it was paid by FFA and channelled into Warner's private account.

Warner spent Wednesday night in prison in Trinidad having appeared in court in Port-of Spain where a judge read eight counts against him and then set bail at, coincidently, about $500,000.

Lowy was the FFA chairman at the time of the Australian bid, which in the end attracted only one vote.

The Australian bid committee controversially hired European-based lobbyists - notably German Fedor Radmann and Hungarian Peter Hargitay - whose competence and ethics were called into question. A subsequent FFA report to the federal government said $7 million was paid to consultants, including what is believed to be £600,000 ($1.19 million) to Hargitay.

Lowy and Australian officials will be asked some tough questions about the prosecution of their campaign as investigators seek to get to the truth of how Qatar came to win the 2022 World Cup rights and Russia the 2018 tournament.

Former disgraced  FIFA executive committee member Blazer, an American, was said to have sought a meeting with Lowy during the London Olympics in 2012, it was revealed late last year, following an investigation by the New York Daily News.

The American newspaper claimed that Blazer became an informant for the FBI after he was threatened by the American tax agency, the IRS, concerning a decade-long unpaid tax bill. In exchange, he subsequently agreed to become a co-operating witness in the crime-fighting organisation's investigation into football corruption.

Blazer's job was to accumulate as much inside information from football's most powerful political figures, with his communications with 44 top international officials, including FIFA president Sepp Blatter, monitored by the FBI.

Pressure is mounting on FIFA to finally cleanse the mess it has created for itself with its poor governance and tolerance of sleaze.

Sponsors like credit card company Visa are also upping the ante and demanding that the game's governing body puts its house in order.

"Our disappointment and concern with FIFA in light of today's developments is profound," Visa said in a statement after news of the arrests broke. "We expect FIFA to take swift and immediate steps to address these issues within its organisation. This starts with rebuilding a culture with strong ethical practices in order to restore the reputation of the game for fans everywhere."

One organisation that doesn't seem too perturbed is the Asian Football Confederation, of which Australia is now a member.

Australia quit FIFA's Oceania region to join the AFC in 2006 after Lowy extensively lobbied Asian powerbrokers headed by the then president - and now disgraced - Qatari Mohamed bin Hammam to ease the move.

Bin Hammam, the fixer behind the Qatar success in the 2022 vote, was subsequently banned for life as a result of the "cash for votes" scandal that brought the tournament to the Middle Eastern nation.

With Blatter desperate to hang on to power and retain his position as president in elections due on Friday, the AFC, which has 47 of the 209 votes, has thrown its weight behind him once again and pledged its support. The FFA has yet to indicate whether it will toe the AFC party line or back UEFA and other nations in calls for the elections to be postponed.

The arrests in Zurich on Wednesday came as part of a US Justice Department 47-count indictment that named nine officials of football's governing body and five sports marketing officials as being involved in alleged bribes and kickbacks amounting to more than $100 million over the past two decades.

with Agencies