FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein has told ESPN FC's Gabriele Marcotti that he wants an investigation into how the U.S. television rights for the 2026 World Cup were awarded to Fox without a tender process or any discussion with the FIFA executive committee.
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke has said FIFA "did what it had to do'' to prevent any possible legal action from the broadcaster in relation to the 2022 rights after the Qatar World Cup was moved to the winter.
Last month, FIFA presidential challenger Michael van Praag labelled the decision to hand the 2026 World Cup rights in North America to Fox without a bidding process as "very strange."
Prince Ali, a current FIFA vice president from Jordan, said large sums of money for football had potentially been lost.
He said in an interview with Marcotti: "Yeah, I'm looking into the details of it. And trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.
"I wasn't a member of those committees, but in my opinion, it's the wrong way of going about things. We're not talking about small sums of money. We're talking about huge sums of money that are potentially being wasted and not spent on future generations and not getting the best deal possible for FIFA.
"It's really irresponsible that these decisions have been taken. Things will become clearer once the elections are over and the next executive committee takes over. But we need to re-evaluate ourselves and our practices."
Prince Ali is running against current president Sepp Blatter, van Praag from the Netherlands and former Portugal international Luis Figo.
A formal rotation of the World Cup among the continents is one of the key elements of his manifesto. Prince Ali said he could envision a World Cup being played in different countries -- or even in different confederations -- in a similar way to Euro 2020, which is being played in 13 nations.
In his manifesto, which he launched on Monday, Prince Ali also warned against any decision on expanding the World Cup from its current 32 countries, or a reallocation of places being taken for purely political reasons to try to drum up votes for the FIFA presidency.
I pledge to transform FIFA into a model of good governance which will support a virtuous circle of success pic.twitter.com/VRPd3Tp2z0
- HRH Prince Ali (@AliForFIFA) April 6, 2015
In terms of World Cup rotation, Prince Ali said the confederations should take turns hosting the tournament.
He told Press Association Sport: "The principle is that it should be rotated among the confederations, but it still has to be based on the best bids.
"But we have to be open-minded. I think it is also possible that two countries from different confederations could co-host the World Cup. Look at Europe in 2020 -- a number of different regions or countries could host the World Cup -- it's in the past now but potentially the Gulf could have had a World Cup due to its close proximity.''
FIFA has announced it will make a decision on the allocation of World Cup places at an executive committee meeting the day after the presidential election on May 29.
Prince Ali said much more consultation was needed before any decision should be made.
He added: "I am very hesitant about people playing politics with the most important flagship event of FIFA and possibly of sport in the world.
"We need to speak to all the stakeholders, including the sponsors. People are making promises to enlarge the World Cup, but in 2022 they are making the World Cup shorter in terms of time frame. We cannot end up with a situation where mistakes are made again.''
Prince Ali has also promised greater transparency, including making public the salaries of the FIFA president and executive committee members. He also believes that the minutes of FIFA executive committee meetings should be made public.
Information from the Press Association was used in this report.