Jerome Champagne has challenged Sepp Blatter to a public discussion ahead of the FIFA presidential election in May 2015.
Frenchman Champagne, 56, is the only candidate standing against current FIFA president Blatter, 78. The former FIFA executive, who worked for the world football's governing body until 2010, announced his candidacy earlier this month, and has now called for a public discussion ahead of the election to bring "transparency" to FIFA.
"A debate behind closed doors would be fatal for the image of FIFA," Champagne told FAZ at a sport marketing convention in Cologne. "We need transparency. The arguments have to be exchanged in front of representatives from all national associations, who should vote for us."
To stand against Blatter, who will be running for a fifth term as the FIFA president, Champagne needs to have the backing of at least five national associations by the end of January.
Blatter, however, said last week, during the FIFA Executive Committee news conference, that public debates are not appropriate for FIFA.
"We are not in politics We are in sport and we shall not imitate all what is done in politics," Blatter said. "I tried to do that in 1998, and they all refused to speak with me at that time."
Champagne has yet to announce who is set to support him, but told the German newspaper: "I am not naive. I know that those who back me also risk trouble. There will certainly be pressure. I don't want to provide a target too soon."
Last week, Champagne already tried to raise his profile before the election, when he joined the chorus of those urging Blatter to make public the Michael Garcia report looking into alleged corruption before and after the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests.
But later that week, Blatter declined, and said that the report is to remain secret.
Champagne also criticised the role of FIFA and UEFA in the ongoing discussion about the role of the two governing bodies in the Ukraine crisis.
Both have not taken any action against the inclusion of Crimea clubs in the Russian league system. The peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea is currently rejoining Russia as a federal subject following a controversial referendum in March 2014, with the process ending on Jan. 1, 2015.
But the result of the referendum has not been accepted by the European Union, and has been approved as illegal by the United Nations General Assembly.
UEFA and FIFA have taken no action against the Russian FA, and Champagne said: "There is no right that those [Crimea] clubs now play in the Russian system."