FIFA has announced that chief operating officer Kevin Lamour has left the organisation, weeks after he publicly criticised Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell a stake in the commercial rights of the World Cup and other tournaments. No further comment will be made on the matter.” Lamour joined the senior leadership group of football’s global governing body in November 2024, having previously been part of the inner circle that campaigned for Infantino’s election as FIFA president in 2016. Lamour had publicly criticised the proposal last month, saying FIFA staff had been “deceived” over the plan and describing it as “the project of one person”.
Frenchman Lamour’s comments came soon after Carlos Cordeiro, a senior adviser to Infantino, resigned in protest against the proposal, calling it “a bad deal for football”. Infantino withdrew the proposal later the same day. The backlash to the plan to create a $20bn subsidiary and sell up to a 20 percent stake to private equity investors to raise $4.2bn has not abated, however.
Infantino’s bid for re-election for a fourth term as president in March next year, which once looked a formality, is now far from certain. The powerful European confederation UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and CONCACAF are ranged in opposition to the 56-year-old Swiss supremo, although he retains the support of the African and South American confederations. Human rights in sport organisation FairSquare confirmed on Monday it had written to FIFA’s Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee (GACC), urging that Infantino be ruled ineligible to seek another term as president.
While FIFA presidents are limited to three terms, Infantino successfully argued in 2022 that his first stint in office from 2016 to 2019 should not count towards that limit because it completed an interrupted mandate. Infantino was initially elected at an Extraordinary Congress following the resignation of Sepp Blatter amid a corruption scandal. He was re-elected unopposed in 2019 and 2023.
FIFA can’t simply circumvent this rule – which serves as a check on presidential power – by saying that his first term doesn’t count.” FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Al Jazeera on Tuesday. Last week, UEFA, the AFC and CONCACAF, which runs football in the Caribbean, North and Central America, called for an independent review of Infantino’s conduct. Sources with knowledge of the situation said the three confederations viewed the letter as an opportunity for Infantino to quit with his dignity intact.
FairSquare’s letter to the GACC was drafted with the assistance of Miguel Maduro, the former head of FIFA’s independent Governance and Review Committee, who said the governing body could not disregard its own rules. Infantino has been an IOC member since 2020.
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