The 81-year-old Canadian was previously in charge of the then International Sailing Federation (ISAF) between 1994 and 2004, before being succeeded by Sweden’s Göran Petersson.

Henderson has now decided to challenge Italian incumbent Croce, who announced he would be seeking re-election in May, having led World Sailing since 2012.

Writing on sailingscuttlebutt.com, Henderson strongly focused on his concerns regarding kiteboarding, which he claims has used sailing "as their avenue to Olympic Status which negatively impacts our sport".

Kiteboarding - an extreme sport which combines wakeboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding and gymnastics - was briefly chosen to replace windsurfing on the Olympic programme for Rio 2016 in May 2012.

This decision was overturned amid fierce opposition from the sailing community just six months later.

The International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) claimed at a meeting in May that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) "wishes to see a medal for kiteboarding" at Tokyo 2020.

The IKA stated that it had previously been agreed that "all 10 events from Rio 2016 would remain the same to provide some continuity", but the World Sailing Council would open up the events with a decision to be made in November, or December, at the latest.

"The next move was that 'panic' set in and that kite-surfing must be made an event of sailing in Tokyo 2020 and that immediately now World Sailing’s policies must be altered negating the previous World Sailing commitment that there would be no changes in events for 2020 after the unfortunate deletion of keelboats which had a ripple effect of sailing being dropped from the Paralympics,” Henderson, a member of the IOC between 2000 and 2004, wrote.

"This also resulted in two new monopoly pieces of equipment being inserted for Rio 2016 which has caused great problems.

"There was then a quickly conceived e-mail vote to change the policy so that kite-surfing could use two of the ten events sailing now has and not be only for extra events if awarded by the IOC.

"The World Sailing staff initiated a phone campaign to Council to get the required vote to ensure this change passed.

"The rumours spread fast that the Finn would be dropped and the 470 made mixed so that two slots opened up for kite-surfing."

Henderson has argued that kiteboarding "fits into the new IOC confirmed sport of surfing" and claims the discipline should use the sport’s governing body, rather than World Sailing, to pursue their Olympic ambitions.

The Canadian has claimed he has asked for clarification and answers to several questions at World Sailing, but states he will now seek the presidency "in the hope that I might finally get some answers".

The election is due to take place at the World Sailing General Assembly at the Hotel Renaissance in Barcelona on November 13, when seven vice-presidents will also be elected.

Two of these must be from each gender with candidates for both roles needing to be endorsed by at least five World Sailing national authorities.

Nominations must be made by September 17.

Croce said that better governance, Olympic development and the Sailing World Cup would be priorities should he be voted back in for a second and final term.

The return of sailing to the Paralympic programme following its removal for Tokyo 2020 is another key aim.

Nobody else has yet come forward to challenge Croce.

insidethegames has approached World Sailing for comment.