by Our Sports Desk

FIFA presidential hopeful Prince Ali bin al-Hussein has been reprimanded for raising questions about his Bahraini rival’s human rights record.

Despite presenting himself as untainted by Fifa’s dodgy dealings due to only arriving at the top table recently, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa has been accused of dobbing in athletes who were involved in pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in 2011.

Human Rights Watch has accused the Khalifa family of overseeing “a campaign of torture and mass incarceration.”

Khalifa has denied the allegations, but Hussein told a news conference last week: “The simple, basic fact of the matter is that person did not protect or stick up for his players at that time.”

And after Tory MP Damian Collins raised questions over Khalifa’s dodgy dealings on Tuesday night, Hussein said he wouldn’t comment because he “was cautioned by the chairman of the electoral committee that I should not be commenting when I answered some very legitimate questions before.”

Collins raised questions over Sheikh Salman’s election as Asian Football Confederation president in 2013.

He said there were “strong grounds to suspect” that the Kyrgyz delegation to had voted for Khalifa because they believed they would receive “significant financial support” for football projects from the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), the head of which is a “close associate” of the sheikh.

Collins said if he was picked to replace Sepp Blatter tomorrow the government should withdraw support for FA bids to host Fifa competitions.

The OCA described the accusations as “entirely without foundation” and a statement from Khalifa on Tuesday night said: “Sheikh Salman has and had no knowledge whatsoever of any inducements offered, or of any payments made by the OCA to any football associations and absolutely no evidence has been forthcoming to show this to have been the case.”

Hussein received a further blow yesterday when the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected his bid for transparent voting booths and independent scrutinisers for tomorrow’s vote.

He said: “I have done all I can, I regret the system let us down.”

The Jordanian prince had even gone so far as to send six clear booths to Zurich in the hope of avoiding some of the scandal surrounding the last vote, which included allegations that some delegations had photographed their ballot.

Meanwhile, Fifa’s ethics committee opened formal proceedings against South American Football Confederation former vice-presidents Luis Bedoya and Sergio Jadue after the pair admitted charges of racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.