Klaveness slams FIFA for firing top executive in 'management by fear'

Former FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour.

GENEVA, Aug 18 (AP): FIFA’s removal of the senior official who said Gianni Infantino deceived staff with his World Cup sell-off plan was unacceptable, Norway soccer president Lise Klaveness said on Tuesday while urging other leaders at the governing body to resist potentially damaging orders.

The firing of FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour late Monday came 17 days after his statement to the Associated Press criticizing Infantino’s $20 billion private equity project that helped to end it hours later.

"Now he is thrown out, and we are supposed to move on. It’s unacceptable; it’s management by fear,” Klaveness told the AP in a telephone interview, describing Lamour as "the best football administrator I have ever met.”

"Now we also have to call upon FIFA leadership and the administration to not submit to orders you know are not in the interests of football,” Klaveness added, especially targeting FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström.

She is a former Norwegian international player, a judge in Oslo, and an elected executive committee member at the European soccer body UEFA who has built on her country’s long-held reputation as a champion of good governance in soccer.

Lamour was a long-time colleague of Infantino, first as a senior official at UEFA from 2007-15, on his campaign team to be elected FIFA president in 2016, then moving two years ago from UEFA to oversee much of FIFA’s operations in Zurich.

With a reputation as one of the most trusted executives in the often murky world of global soccer politics, Lamour’s pointed criticisms of Infantino’s leadership intensified a crisis for the FIFA president.

A backlash by UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation, and the North American soccer body CONCACAF was provoked by a secretive plan to sell future World Cup profits to investors led by Joshua Kushner.

A $4.2 billion investment to take a 20% stake in a FIFA commercial spin-off was to fund offers of $20 million to each of its 211 national member federations. They already effectively own the non-profit soccer body, which has multibillion-dollar reserves, and would have had a mid-September deadline to accept.

Lamour’s statement on July 31 spoke of FIFA staff being "deceived” by Infantino’s lack of openness over the now-failed sale and how they "deserve better than contempt and intimidation.”

The French executive called on soccer leaders worldwide "to make the right decisions” and signed off: "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.”

"This is a firing situation; it’s not a resignation,” Klaveness said of Lamour’s exit, suggesting it was done by Grafström, "obviously being pressured by the president.”