PARIS — As world soccer opens its most important championship for women this week, it is confronting a range of accusations that men with influence over women in the sport repeatedly have used their positions to harass or abuse them. Since the start of this year, coaches and administrators in at least five countries on four continents have been accused by players and colleagues of sexual misconduct, inappropriate behavior and even rape. Now, an internal investigation has begun into a vice president of FIFA , world soccer’s governing body, after he was accused, among other transgressions, of dismissing an employee in 2017 after she rejected his romantic advances. The official, Ahmad Ahmad, the president of Africa’s soccer confederation and a close ally of the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, has denied the accusation and separate claims that he sexually harassed several other women. The harassment allegations against Ahmad are the first to be made against the leader of one of soccer’s six regional governing bodies. Ahmad also has been accused of misusing confederation funds and entering into questionable contracts, potential offenses that led to his being detained by the French authorities in Paris on Thursday . He was later released without…