AP Interview: Klaveness slams Infantino’s FIFA for firing top executive in ‘management by fear’

She is a former Norway international player, a judge in Oslo and an elected executive committee member at 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 senior officials 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.

Infantino in crisis

With a reputation among 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 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.”

Fired, not resigned

“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.”

In a statement, FIFA said it “thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future.”

“His statement was necessary to kill the project,” Klaveness said of Lamour’s intervention. “He said something that was obvious, that was very important that someone within the staff told us the story so that we knew it was not FIFA, as such, but one person.”

Infantino called a meeting with senior management minus Lamour in Rabat, Morocco. After that Aug. 5 meeting, a FIFA statement apologized for errors and said those managers who attended “reaffirmed their full support” of Infantino’s presidency.

“We all got reports in Morocco, we know it’s a management of fear,” Klaveness said. “It’s not in football’s best interests.”

Until the uproar over Infantino’s “FIFA Forward Enterprise” proposal, he seemed sure to be reelected unopposed next year in Morocco. The deadline is Nov. 18 for challengers to enter the contest.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

AP Interview: Klaveness slams Infantino’s FIFA for firing top executive in ‘management by fear’

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