Former Australia national team captain Craig Foster and the Australian and worldwide players' unions have been leading a campaign for the release al-Araibi, who plays for a semi-professional club in Australia.

Governing body Football Federation Australia (FFA) today cancelled the under-23 men's national team plans to hold a training camp and a friendly game in Thailand ahead of the AFC U23 Championship qualifiers in March.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ramped up pressure on Bangkok to release a refugee footballer held on a Bahrain extradition request, as sporting authorities cancelled two events in Thailand over his detention.

"As soon as Hakeem and his wife travelled to Thailand for their honeymoon, the Government of Bahrain expedited its coordination with the Thai Government to have Hakeem arrested and commence extradition proceedings immediately", the statement reads.

A former player for Bahrain's national football team, al-Araibi has spoken out about a senior Bahraini official's alleged torture of footballers who had participated in demonstrations.

Al-Araibi is to stay in custody until an April 22 trial to determine whether Thai authorities are to send him to Bahrain or release him so he can return to Australia.

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald published Tuesday, al-Araibi urged Morrison to "please, please keep fighting for me, please keep working hard on my case".

In 2014, a court in Bahrain sentenced Araibi to 10 years in prison on multiple charges of vandalizing a police station.

Thailand said previously that it was acting on an Interpol Red Notice request from Bahrain.

Australia has called for Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to personally intervene and free the semi-professional footballer.

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Former Australia national football team captain Craig Foster, who has been lobbying for al-Araibi's release, shouted words of encouragement to the jailed player.

"If you look at the number of foreign defendants, they pay their bail and jump bail and then don't show up in court", Chatchom Akapin, the office's director general for global affairs, said, adding that the policy applied "not only to Hakeem".

"I would be very disappointed if as a result of how this was handled that that relationship between the Thai and Australian people were affected", he told reporters in Melbourne on Wednesday.

And I'd simply say this, it is within the executive authority of the Thai government to actually enable him under their law to be returned to Australia. "This was also confirmed by the prosecutor in the context of yesterday's hearing", Payne wrote in a statement.

"If you look at the number of foreign defendants, they pay their bail and jump bail and then don't show up in court", Chatchom Akapin, the office's director general for worldwide affairs, said, adding that the policy applied "not only to Hakeem".

The statement suggested that Australia and Bahrain talk with each other to work out a mutually acceptable agreement on al-Araibi's fate, rather than have a Thai court decide it.

The Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF) which is also a signatory, separately said the Thai attorney-general should use his discretion to withdraw the case to "reduce pressure from the worldwide community and make our stand to protect refugees from persecution".

He says he faces torture and possible death in Bahrain.

"If Mr Hakeem's case was a political case or that he was a political refugee, Thailand would have no right to extradite him back to Bahrain under any circumstances".