BAHRAIN Football Association (BFA) president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has hit back at Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohammed Bin Hammam after being accused of leading a clandestine plot to oust the Qatari.
Shaikh Salman said accusations that he was heading a campaign funded by prominent officials keen to topple Bin Hammam were "out of line", and called for fair play in upcoming elections for the Fifa executive committee.
The BFA chief is running against Bin Hammam for his West Asian place, the first challenge to his Fifa seat in 14 years. Defeat for Bin Hammam would seriously undermine his Asian presidency, informed sources say.
"It's not fair to have to hear these comments from someone like Bin Hammam," Shaikh Salman told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"His comments are completely untrue and out of line. What I have said so far has been fair and proper. I don't accept comments like this from this person."
In a weekend interview with a Qatari television, Bin Hammam vowed to quit if he lost his Fifa executive committee seat.
He suggested that Shaikh Salman had been 'instructed' to launch the campaign by other AFC member countries keen to remove him, in particular, South Korea.
In an apparent attempt to guarantee himself a place on the committee, Bin Hammam has put forward a statutory amendment that would automatically grant the AFC president a seat on the Fifa panel, taking one of the seven vice-presidential positions.
The current Asian vice-president on the Fifa committee is South Korean Chung Mong-joon.
Shaikh Salman blamed the AFC chief for creating disharmony in Asian soccer and urged him to campaign fairly, without personal attacks.
"We shouldn't make this personal," he said. "There are difficulties between member associations now because of Bin Hammam's management of football in Asia. I know he's had problems because of how he's run the AFC.
"The upcoming election is an election for change. We really don't want to see what's happening now. There's a 'you're either with me or against me' approach with the other party.
"Threats are being made to people and in a world of democracy, this is simply unacceptable."
Meanwhile, South Korea's football body has demanded an apology from Bin Hammam for what it called insulting comments.
The Korea Football Association (KFA) said that "if necessary" it would take joint action with other AFC members and file a complaint with world football's governing body Fifa.
In a recent television interview, the KFA said, Bin Hammam made insulting remarks against KFA chief Cho Jung-Yeon by saying he was ready to "cut Cho's head off."
"We strongly criticise Bin Hammam's groundless remarks insulting us and other AFC members," KFA spokesman You Young-Cheul told AFP.
"The KFA wants an explanation and apology from Bin Hammam over his remarks, which are improper as AFC head."
Bin Hammam has since described his quote regarding Cho as a "harmless and widely used Arabic metaphor" meaning an attempt to thwart someone's progress.
