He said he could live with losing the job
Kevin Lamour told the Associated Press in July that he was ready to be sacked. On Monday it happened. FIFA confirmed that its chief operating officer had left, weeks after he publicly took apart Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
The statement was short. “FIFA can confirm that the working relationship between FIFA and Kevin Lamour as FIFA’s Chief Operating Officer has ended on 17 August 2026,” it read. “FIFA 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.”
Nobody at FIFA used the word sacking. The Guardian did. So did the United Kingdom’s Press Association. Staff reportedly learned of the departure through an email from secretary general Mattias Grafstrom.
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What he actually said in July
Lamour called the private equity plan “the project of one person” and said he and colleagues felt deceived by it. He went further than that.
“Not only must this project not go ahead … but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions,” he said. Then came the line that reads rather differently now. “If that means I lose my job, then so be it. I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”
A French and Swiss citizen, Lamour joined FIFA in November 2024 from UEFA, where he had served as deputy general secretary. Two years in Zurich, and out.
The plan he attacked is already dead
Infantino floated the idea shortly after the 2026 World Cup finished. Broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing rights bundled into a single commercial vehicle, stakes in that vehicle sold to private equity, billions of dollars ploughed back into the game.
UEFA, CONCACAF and the AFC all opposed it. UEFA went as far as threatening to boycott FIFA tournaments outright. Carlos Cordeiro, the former U.S. Soccer president who had been advising Infantino, resigned the day FIFA dropped the idea.
“Selling a permanent stake in football’s most valuable asset to raise $4.2 billion makes little sense,” Cordeiro said at the time. “It is mortgaging football’s future without any compelling justification.”
So the plan collapsed, and the man who criticised it in public is gone anyway. Infantino is now watching federations line up against his next presidential campaign, with Scotland the latest to say it will not back him.
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