[SOLVED] Call to wp_footer() not made right before </body> - why?

Is there a reason the call to wp_footer() is not made right before the closing </body> tag, as more or less outlined in the Wordpress theme development pages? In my version of Atahualpa (3.4.4, oldie, I know), the call is made in a table generating some statistics, which is a few closing tags above </body>. Would stuff break if I moved it out by hand to its 'rightful' place?