FIFA confirmed on Monday that its working relationship with Lamour “has ended on 17 August 2026”, thanking the Frenchman for his two years of service and adding that no further comment would be made.
The sparse statement followed three weeks of extraordinary internal revolt after Lamour publicly turned on Infantino over an aborted commercial venture.
Lamour spoke out on 31 July, hours after Infantino’s senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro also resigned in protest. The COO accused the FIFA president of a lack of transparency and told the Associated Press that staff had been “deceived” and “deserve better than contempt and intimidation.”
He was blunt about the consequences.
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“And 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.”
The plan that pulled FIFA apart
The trigger was FIFA Forward Enterprise, unveiled on 28 July: a proposed $20 billion subsidiary that would run the World Cup and other FIFA tournaments, with up to a 20 percent minority stake sold to private investors for around $4.2 billion. Thrive Eternal, a firm launched by Joshua Kushner, was named as the intended lead investor.
The plan lasted less than 72 hours in public. UEFA’s 55 member associations voted unanimously on 30 July to boycott future World Cups and all FIFA competitions until the project was scrapped. CONCACAF and the AFC also pushed back. On 2 August, Infantino withdrew the proposal, and FIFA issued a public apology to its members over the way it had been handled.
Lamour’s attack was harsher than most.
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“It is the project of one person. 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 went further about the president himself.
“Our mission … is to serve football. Not to serve the personal interests of a person who, unfortunately, believes he embodies FIFA when he is supposed to be at its service.”
Two decades alongside Infantino, undone in weeks
Lamour is no marginal figure. He joined UEFA in 2007 and rose to deputy general secretary before following Infantino across to Zurich, taking over as FIFA COO in November 2024. Colleagues for the best part of two decades, the two men were on opposite sides of the biggest governance fight of Infantino’s presidency inside a matter of days.
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Cordeiro’s resignation letter, published the same day as Lamour’s comments, called the sale “a bad deal for football” and questioned why FIFA would raise $4.2 billion by giving up part of “football’s most valuable asset” when the governing body sits on billions in reserves and no debt.
Infantino heads toward a fourth-term vote
FIFA members reaffirmed their backing for Infantino after the Forward Enterprise collapse, and the president is expected to stand for a fourth term at the FIFA Congress in March 2027. FIFA has 211 member associations, and each casts its own ballot; confederations can lobby and criticise, but they do not control how their members vote.
Removing an outspoken internal critic seven months out from that vote is the first visible move against the dissenters. Cordeiro walked out on his own. Lamour did not.
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