{"id":862589,"date":"2026-08-18T14:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T14:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862589\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T14:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T14:04:13","slug":"kevin-lamour-key-fifa-official-who-criticised-infantinos-world-cup-plans-leaves-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862589\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Lamour, key FIFA official who criticised Infantino\u2019s World Cup plans, leaves role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Lamour has left his position as chief operating officer at FIFA.<\/p>\n

Lamour\u2019s departure comes after the FIFA executive released a statement to the Associated Press<\/a> on July 31 criticising Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, amid the fallout from the abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal.<\/p>\n

Lamour told AP that staff had been \u201cdeceived\u201d by Infantino regarding the FFE plan, which would have seen world soccer\u2019s governing body make stakes in the World Cup available for private investment.<\/p>\n

A FIFA spokesperson said in a statement to The Athletic: \u201cFIFA can confirm that the working relationship between FIFA and Kevin Lamour as FIFA\u2019s Chief Operating Officer has ended on 17 August 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cFIFA thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future. No further comment will be made on the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FIFA sell-off scandal, explained<\/p>\n

Hannah Vanbiber and Reuben Pinder<\/p>\n

Lamour, who previously worked with Infantino at UEFA, the governing body for European football, told AP in July: \u201cIt is the project of one person. Not only must this project not go ahead \u2026 but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamour also said that he was prepared to lose his job over speaking out publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that means I lose my job, then so be it,\u201d his statement to AP added. \u201cI will understand and respect that decision. At least I\u2019ll sleep well tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mattias Grafstrom, FIFA\u2019s secretary general, informed staff at FIFA via email that Lamour would be leaving the organisation and also thanked him for his service.<\/p>\n

Lamour had been in the role since November 2024. He was previously UEFA\u2019s deputy general secretary, having joined the European federation in 2007.<\/p>\n

Lamour\u2019s departure follows that of Infantino\u2019s senior advisor Carlos Cordeiro, who resigned in July due to his opposition to the FFE plans.<\/p>\n

In an internal letter sent to colleagues on Monday, first published on X by Jan Aage Fjortoft<\/a> and since confirmed by The Athletic, Lamour praised Grafstrom and Dan O\u2019Toole, FIFA\u2019s chief of staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis task is not an easy one, and he is doing his utmost to protect FIFA\u2019s interests,\u201d Lamour said of Grafstrom. \u201cMattias, I\u2019m sorry for sometimes putting you in difficult situations\u2026 but thank you for always understanding me, never judging me and supporting me right up to the very end.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thanked O\u2019Toole for their \u201cdaily morning chats\u201d and his \u201cinfectious passion for work and football\u201d, adding: \u201cYou should be proud to have Dan as a colleague. Appearances can sometimes be deceiving, things are far more complex than they seem, and FIFA is very fortunate to be able to count on Dan on a day-to-day basis and for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamour then thanked other staff members at FIFA, but there was no mention of Infantino. He did thank one person called Gianni, but pointedly added \u201c\u2026(Manca)\u201d.<\/p>\n

He signed off his letter by writing: \u201cFIFA is going through a difficult period, but don\u2019t worry. Everything will be okay in the end. If it\u2019s not okay it\u2019s not the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n The fallout from Gianni Infantino\u2019s failed plan to make FIFA\u2019s commercial and event operations available for private investment continues. (Tasos Katopodis \u2014 FIFA \/ FIFA via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In July, FIFA announced its plans to sell a significant minority stake in a new entity that it, as a non-profit organisation, was planning to set up to run its main events, such as the World Cups and Club World Cups.<\/p>\n

FIFA wanted to sell a fifth of the new entity to an investor group led by Thrive Eternal \u2014 a U.S. investment fund run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner \u2014\u00a0for $4.2billion (\u00a33.1bn). The plans were ultimately scrapped following significant backlash.<\/p>\n

The plans led to UEFA, Concacaf \u2014 the confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean \u2014 and the Asian Football Confederation calling for Infantino to resign from his role at FIFA. South American federation CONMEBOL and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) have not called for the FIFA president to resign.<\/p>\n

UEFA has also threatened to boycott all future FIFA competitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cUEFA\u2019s associations were very clear about the conditions attached to the non participation in FIFA competitions,\u201d a UEFA spokesperson told The Athletic on August 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, the proposals to sell off the major competitions had to be withdrawn and secondly, assurances have to be made that such attempts to disfigure the game in this way will never be made again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese conditions have not been met. In addition, UEFA made it abundantly clear in its statement on Saturday that it has lost confidence in Gianni Infantino\u2019s presidency. That position holds.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement was released by UEFA following a crisis meeting of FIFA\u2019s senior leadership team Morocco on August 5, which led to a joint apology from Infantino and Grafstrom. Despite being part of the management board, Lamour was not invited to attend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Lamour has left his position as chief operating officer at FIFA. Lamour\u2019s departure comes after the FIFA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,103818,571,561,82,575],"class_list":["post-862589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-international-football","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}