The head of European football has accused Boris Johnson of hypocrisy for criticising racism in the game given his notorious comments about Muslims.

Aleksander Ceferin, the president of governing body UEFA, admitted it needed to do more to tackle abusive fans – but said he would not take criticism from the prime minister.

“When a politician that calls women with burkas post boxes or mailboxes, then says publicly that he condemns UEFA, do you reply to that? Do you believe it's honest? Come on,” he protested.

Speaking to the Mirror, Mr Ceferin said: “When you see high politicians, prime ministers, when you see presidents of republics who are racists, who were sexist, who were homophobes, you see that something is wrong.

“Because if you see an idiot from the streets shouting you say, 'okay, put him in prison' and that's it.

“But when politicians start speaking, they are not punished. And we have that in Europe more and more.”

In October, Mr Johnson told UEFA to get tough on racism after monkey chants were directed at England's footballers during a European Championship qualifier in Bulgaria.

Yet, during an election TV debate, he refused to apologise for describing Muslim women wearing the veil as looking like letterboxes and bank robbers.

Instead, he denied that newspaper column had been offensive – claiming it could only be “made to seem offensive” if taken out of context – and said: “I defend my right to speak out.”

Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Show all 5 1 /5 Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Made-up quote for The Times Johnson was sacked from The Times newspaper in the late 1980s after he fabricated a quote from his godfather, the historian Colin Lucas, for a front-page article about the discovery of Edward II’s Rose Palace. “The trouble was that somewhere in my copy I managed to attribute to Colin the view that Edward II and Piers Gaveston would have been cavorting together in the Rose Palace,” he claimed. Alas, Gaveston was executed 13 years before the palace was built. “It was very nasty,” Mr Johnson added, before attempting to downplay it as nothing more than a schoolboy blunder. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Sacked from cabinet over cheating lie Michael Howard gave Boris Johnson two new jobs after becoming leader of the Conservatives in 2003 – party vice-chairman and shadow arts minister. He was sacked from both positions in November 2004 after assuring Mr Howard that tabloid reports of his affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt were false and an “inverted pyramid of piffle”. When the story was found to be true, he refused to resign. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Broken promise to boss In 1999 Johnson was offered editorship of The Spectator by owner Conrad Black on the condition that he would not stand as an MP while in the post. In 2001 he stood - and was elected - MP for Henley, though Black did allow him to continue as editor despite calling "ineffably duplicitous" PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Misrepresenting the people of Liverpool As editor of The Spectator, he was forced to apologise for an article in the magazine which blamed drunken Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and suggested that the people of the city were wallowing in their victim status. “Anyone, journalist or politician, should say sorry to the people of Liverpool – as I do – for misrepresenting what happened at Hillsborough,” he said. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson ‘I didn’t say anything about Turkey’ Johnson claimed in January, that he did not mention Turkey during the EU referendum campaign. In fact, he co-signed a letter stating that “the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave and take back control”. The Vote Leave campaign also produced a poster reading: “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”

The prime minister faced a hostile audience over his past newspaper columns, with the accusation that he had “personally contributed” to rampant racism in Britain.

During the special BBC Question Time, he was also reminded of his descriptions of black people as “tribal warriors with watermelon smiles” and “flagwaving piccaninnies”.

Mr Johnson has been dogged by the articles he wrote as a journalist, including the recent revelation that he wrote that seeing “a bunch of black kids” scared him.

There was loud applause when the prime minister was accused of contributing to the problem of “racist rhetoric” being “rife in this country”.

Mr Ceferin was interviewed to the backdrop of the anger of footballers and fans, who have accused it of failing black players by not punishing clubs and countries with racially-abusive fans.

Black players have started walking off the pitch in protest at the officials' inability to protect them.

Mr Ceferin has promised to make UEFA more accountable, and its 10-man, all-white disciplinary committee more diverse, to better stand up for footballers enduring racist abuse.

“Everything is ready, so we can put in additional members of the disciplinary committee, as now it's a fixed number,” he said.