Fifa’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour has been sacked by the governing body, less than three weeks after he strongly criticised its president Gianni Infantino’s aborted plan to sell stakes in competitions to private investors, BBC Sport has been told.

In a statement, a Fifa spokesperson would only confirm that “the working relationship between Fifa and Kevin Lamour as Chief Operating Officer has ended on 17 August 2026.

“Fifa thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future.”

Fifa’s staff were informed of the news in an email by its secretary general Mattias Grafstrom on Monday evening, who told them the organisation and Lamour had “agreed to part ways”.

Last month, Lamour described the controversial Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) plans as “the project of one person”, and said “the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions”.

He added Fifa’s own administration was “deceived” about the now abandoned project.

“Our mission – the mission of the hundreds of passionate, dedicated, and exemplary Fifa employees – is to serve football”, he added.

“A president must bring people together, unite them, and inspire them. Today, we are experiencing the opposite.”

Lamour acknowledged he had a duty of loyalty to his employer but also to “certain values” and supporting his colleagues.

“If that means I lose my job, then so be it,” he added. “I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”

Lamour joined Fifa in November 2024, having previously served as deputy general secretary at Uefa, and was two layers of management below Infantino.

Earlier this month, Infantino received the backing of senior executives in a meeting in Morocco, but BBC Sport was told Lamour was not invited.

Lamour has been approached for comment.

In a letter sent to members of Fifa’s Council, and seen by BBC Sport, Grafstrom wrote: “I would like to provide you with an important update regarding a change within the Fifa Administration.

“Following recent discussions, Fifa and our Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Lamour have agreed to part ways. This decision was made after careful consideration and with great respect for Kevin, both personally and professionally… I felt it was important that I personally provide you this update and I would like to express my gratitude to Kevin for these contributions and for his work and commitment on behalf of Fifa on a daily basis. I wish Kevin all the best for the future.”

The Thai government is intensifying efforts against illegal businesses and nominee shareholding through inspections in Bangkok, revealing licensing issues, potential unauthorized employment, and investigating corruption among officials.

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Key Points

• The Thai government intensified efforts against illegal business networks and nominee shareholding in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang District, led by Deputy Minister of Interior Polapee Suwunchwee. Joint inspections revealed some hotels operating without licenses and potential violations related to foreign investment.
• Inspections also highlighted issues with fire safety, unauthorized foreign workers, and construction irregularities. An operator attempted to bribe officials to evade legal action, prompting further investigation and possible disciplinary measures for involved public officials.
• The government plans to expand inspections nationwide, focusing on public information, online reviews, and financial tracing. The commitment to legal action against corrupt practices aims to protect local entrepreneurs and restore public trust.

Thai Government Steps Up Action Against Illegal Businesses and Suspected Nominee Arrangements

The government has increased enforcement against illegal business networks and suspected nominee shareholding by conducting joint inspections of hotels and establishments in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang District.

Deputy Government Spokesperson Lalida Persvivatana stated that Deputy Minister of Interior Polapee Suwunchwee led the Integrated Huai Khwang operation on August 9, 2026, in response to public complaints and information.

​The operation involved the Department of Provincial Administration, the Immigration Bureau, the Department of Business Development, the Department of Employment, and the Department of Special Investigation.

​Preliminary inspections revealed that some hotels and establishments may have operated without licenses. Authorities also identified construction or modification issues requiring legal review, as well as possible cases of Thai nationals holding shares for foreign investors. Investigations and evidence collection are ongoing.

​Officials also identified concerns with fire escapes, emergency exits, and fire-prevention systems. Labor inspections found foreign nationals potentially working without proper authorization or in roles reserved for Thai citizens.

​During the operation, a business operator allegedly attempted to offer benefits to officials in exchange for avoiding legal action and referenced local agency officials. The Interior Ministry has ordered further investigation, and disciplinary or criminal proceedings will follow if any public official is found to be involved.

​The Land Department will review property ownership, while investigators will trace financial activities, including QR codes potentially linked to illegal gambling sites, payments outside Thai bank accounts, and transactions on foreign platforms.

The Deputy Spokesperson stated that the government plans to expand inspections nationwide using public information, online platform reviews, and financial tracing. The government remains committed to taking decisive legal action against foreign capitalists, nominees, legal and accounting facilitators, and corrupt officials to protect Thai entrepreneurs and restore public trust.

Source : Thai Government Steps Up Action Against Illegal Businesses and Suspected Nominee Arrangements

Gold’s 9% recovery in August to around $4,400 an ounce indicates that the precious metal is regaining favour among institutional investors and central banks, positioning it for further gains as markets move beyond the initial shock of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Reuters reported.

The conflict’s outbreak in late February sent gold tumbling from a record $5,595 an ounce in January to below $4,000 in June, as investors sought liquidity and some central banks drew on their reserves to support domestic economies amid surging oil prices.

“It feels as though the handbrake has finally been released from gold,” said Ross Norman, an independent analyst.

Gold has broken through two key resistance levels this month, supported by lower oil prices and softer U.S. inflation data that reduced expectations for further interest-rate increases.

“If oil doesn’t steal the show again, if the situation in the Middle East does not erupt and oil prices spike, then the path of least resistance for gold looks higher,” James Steel, chief precious metals analyst at HSBC, told Reuters.

Steel said the strength of gold’s rebound over the past two weeks suggested that central banks or sovereign wealth funds may have been active, although he stressed that this was an inference rather than confirmed information.
Institutional demand for large gold bars was another likely source of support, with premiums in Asian trading centres, including China, indicating renewed buying interest. China’s gold premium stood at $1.50 an ounce last week.“It is really, I think, the rebuilding of positions that large institutions had before the conflict with Iran,” Steel added further.

However, stalled efforts to end the Iran war, weak jewellery and coin demand and subdued inflows into interest-rate-sensitive gold-backed ETFs could limit further gains. According to the World Gold Council, these funds added only $7 billion in the first half of August, taking their assets under management to $582 billion.

Technical indicators also pose a challenge. The relative strength index suggests gold is nearing short-term “overbought” territory, while the 200-day moving average, currently at $4,504, remains a strong resistance level.

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of killing her three young children in January 2023, entered its 14th day of testimony Monday in Plymouth Superior Court, with Judge William Sullivan telling jurors that prosecutors are expected to formally rest their case during the session.

“It’s anticipated that the Commonwealth will close their portion of the evidence today,” Sullivan told jurors Monday morning, according to court reporting. “Then at that point, the defendant has the opportunity, if they want to, to present witnesses and evidence if they want to.”

The trial has generated intense public interest and has been livestreamed throughout its run, with coverage available through several Massachusetts news outlets including Boston 25 News, CBS Boston and ABC7, all of which have provided ongoing livestream access and real-time updates from inside the courtroom. Journalists and members of the public have packed the courtroom itself throughout the proceedings, while online audiences have closely followed developments as the case has unfolded.

Clancy, 36, faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — who died at the family’s Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023. Clancy has pleaded not guilty. Her attorneys do not dispute that she killed the children, but argue she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time and believed she was hearing voices instructing her to take the children’s lives and her own.

Prosecutors have presented a different account, arguing that Clancy acted with intent and premeditation. According to prosecutors, Clancy arranged to have her husband, Patrick, leave the house to pick up takeout food and visit a pharmacy on the day of the killings, then strangled the children with resistance exercise bands while he was away. Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham has urged jurors to evaluate the case on its facts rather than as a broader referendum on mental health treatment, telling the court the trial should not be viewed as “a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women.”

The trial’s 13th day of testimony, held Thursday, included Massachusetts State Police investigators walking jurors through forensic analysis of Clancy’s cellphone, part of the prosecution’s broader effort to establish a timeline and pattern of behavior leading up to the killings. During cross-examination that day, defense attorney Kevin Reddington highlighted internet search history from a family computer, including searches related to psychiatric medication and mental health terms conducted in the weeks before the killings, though ownership and authorship of some searches remained disputed between the two sides during testimony.

The trial’s proceedings the day before, on Wednesday, were described as particularly difficult, with jurors shown autopsy photographs and hearing graphic testimony regarding injuries suffered by Clancy’s two oldest children. That testimony reportedly prompted Clancy to become emotional in the courtroom, at one point telling the court, “I can’t do this,” according to reporting from the trial.

A legal analyst who has followed the proceedings has suggested that Clancy’s emotional reactions during testimony could influence how jurors ultimately perceive her state of mind, both at the time of the killings and throughout the trial itself, a factor that may play into the jury’s eventual determination regarding her criminal responsibility.

Prosecutors have sought throughout the trial to demonstrate that Clancy had access to a range of mental health resources and treatment options but did not consistently follow medical guidance, including discontinuing certain prescribed medications. Several of Clancy’s treating medical providers have testified for the prosecution, telling jurors that Clancy never discussed having a specific plan to harm herself or her children during their sessions with her, and that she did not display outward signs consistent with psychosis or mania, despite having reported experiencing suicidal thoughts to some providers.

The defense, led by Reddington, has maintained since early in the case that Clancy had been prescribed as many as a dozen different medications following the birth of her third child and that resulting over-medication, which Reddington has previously described as “horrific,” significantly contributed to her mental state at the time of the killings. The defense has argued this amounted to postpartum psychosis severe enough that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions under Massachusetts law.

According to prosecutors’ account presented at Clancy’s initial arraignment, after the killings, Clancy attempted to take her own life by cutting her wrist and neck before jumping from a second-story window of the family home. She survived but sustained injuries that left her permanently paralyzed from the waist down. She has remained hospitalized, primarily at Tewksbury Hospital, throughout much of the period since her arrest and has appeared at various pretrial hearings via video conference due to her medical condition.

Clancy’s case has drawn extensive pretrial litigation over the more than three years since the killings, including disputes over medical records, expert witness materials and reporting notes from a New Yorker journalist who had interviewed Patrick Clancy regarding his wife’s mental health prior to the killings. The trial itself was postponed multiple times before ultimately beginning this summer.

Clancy’s parents, Mike and Paula Musgrove of Wallingford, Connecticut, have continued to publicly support their daughter throughout the legal proceedings. “She’s a loving mother, always has been,” Paula Musgrove told reporters outside the courtroom during an earlier hearing, while her husband added, “We love our daughter very much, and we’re here just to support her any way we possibly can.”

With prosecutors expected to conclude their case Monday, attention now turns to whether the defense will call its own witnesses, including any mental health experts expected to testify regarding Clancy’s psychiatric state at the time of the killings. No timeline has been announced for how long the defense’s portion of the trial might take, and Judge Sullivan has not indicated when the case might ultimately go to the jury for deliberation.

This story involves themes of suicide, mental illness and violence toward children, which can be difficult to read about. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, thoughts of suicide, or postpartum depression or psychosis, you can call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org, available 24/7.

Wall Street‘s three major indexes fell on Monday as investors waited for quarterly reports from large retailers to provide insights into U.S. consumer spending, ‌while oil prices rose ⁠as the ⁠U.S. and Iran appeared no closer to a deal.

Oil futures settled up more than $2 per barrel as investor pessimism about ​diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iran war fanned global supply worries. The gain in oil provided support for ​the energy index.

Investors, with July’s weak retail sales and jobs data fresh in their minds, were cautious as they waited for quarterly results from retailers. Home improvement company Home Depot is due to ​report on Tuesday, and retail bellwether Walmart on Thursday.

“Concerns about ⁠recent softer ‌data have the market being a bit tepid and waiting for retail ​earnings for direction,” ​said Phil Blancato, chief market strategist at Osaic Wealth, who added that volume ⁠is often weak in August, when many traders take vacations. “There’s a ​combination of summer doldrums and waiting for data on the consumer.”

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 39.55 points, or 0.51%, to end at 7,746.21 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 76.87 points, or 0.31%, to 26,652.29. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 263.21 points, or 0.49%, to 53,469.20.

Most of the benchmark S&P 500’s 11 major industry sectors lost ground on the day with communications services, consumer staples and consumer discretionary among the weakest.
The S&P 500 ‌technology sector flitted between red and green during the session. Trading in technology has been volatile with investors anxious about whether hefty spending on artificial intelligence will ​pay off. Reuters ​reported on Friday that two ⁠people familiar with Anthropic’s financials said the company, which is preparing for its IPO, forecast 2028 revenue of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion.On Monday, gains in chip stocks were offset by declines in software ​with the PHLX semiconductor index rallying while the S&P 500 Software & Services index sank.

Investors are also waiting for results, due out next week, from leading AI chipmaker Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company.

In individual movers, U.S.-listed shares of Vista gained ground after Peter Thiel bought a 1% stake in the Latin American oil company.

SHANGHAI — Shares of ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, jumped 12%, or 6.62 yuan, to 61.80 yuan as of 3:00 p.m. local time Monday, extending an extraordinary rally that has continued largely uninterrupted since the Chinese memory chipmaker’s blockbuster debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s tech-focused STAR Market three weeks ago.

CXMT’s stock has surged dramatically since it began trading on July 27, when shares soared as much as 466% to 500% on their first day of trading alone, instantly making the Hefei-based company the most valuable listed entity on any mainland Chinese exchange. The company’s shares closed that opening session at 49 yuan, giving CXMT a market capitalization of roughly 3.3 trillion yuan, or approximately $487 billion at the time, a figure that vaulted the company past state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as China’s most valuable listed company.

The rally has continued in the weeks since, with shares climbing further to close at 57.60 yuan the following Friday, pushing the company’s market capitalization to roughly 3.54 trillion yuan, or about $523 billion, according to figures reported at the time. Monday’s additional 12% gain to 61.80 yuan pushes the stock further into record territory, underscoring the sustained investor enthusiasm surrounding the company since its listing.

CXMT’s initial public offering itself was a landmark event for Chinese capital markets. The company raised 57.92 billion yuan, or roughly $8.6 billion, by pricing its shares at 8.66 yuan each, making it the largest IPO in Asia so far this year and mainland China’s second-largest public offering on record, trailing only the $22.1 billion combined Shanghai and Hong Kong listing of Agricultural Bank of China in 2010.

Founded in 2016 in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei with state backing, CXMT specializes in designing, manufacturing and selling dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, chips, a category of semiconductor widely used in servers, personal computers, mobile devices and smart vehicles. The company’s major clients include Alibaba Group’s cloud computing division, Alibaba Cloud, along with ByteDance, Tencent Holdings, Lenovo, Xiaomi and several major smartphone manufacturers including Honor, Oppo and Vivo.

According to figures disclosed in the company’s IPO prospectus, CXMT held approximately 7.67% of the global DRAM market based on fourth-quarter 2025 sales data, a share that has continued growing as the company has expanded production. By comparison, the global DRAM market remains dominated by three much larger established players: South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, which the company’s prospectus placed at roughly 36% global market share, SK Hynix at approximately 29%, and U.S.-based Micron Technology at around 24%.

CXMT’s dramatic financial turnaround has helped fuel investor enthusiasm surrounding the stock. The company swung to an operating profit of 35.43 billion yuan in the first quarter, reversing a loss of 2.83 billion yuan during the same period a year earlier, a shift the company has attributed to continued growth in global computing demand tied to artificial intelligence and increased capacity allocation from major device manufacturers seeking memory chip supply.

CXMT’s rise has taken on particular significance given the broader geopolitical backdrop shaping China’s semiconductor industry. The company has emerged as a central symbol of Beijing’s broader push toward technological self-sufficiency, particularly in advanced chipmaking, as China continues to contend with U.S.-led export restrictions limiting its access to cutting-edge chipmaking equipment and technology. The company is also investing heavily in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a specialized and more advanced form of DRAM critical for the kind of advanced processors used in AI applications, including graphics processing units made by Nvidia. CXMT has said it aims to begin production at a dedicated HBM back-end packaging facility in Shanghai by the end of 2026.

Adding further to investor interest surrounding the stock, reports emerged earlier this summer that Apple had begun testing CXMT’s DRAM chips for potential use in devices sold within China, a development that, if it results in a formal supply relationship, could mark a significant commercial validation of the Chinese chipmaker’s technology by one of the world’s largest device manufacturers.

Despite its meteoric post-IPO rise, CXMT’s market capitalization, while enormous by Chinese standards, remains smaller than those of its more established South Korean and American rivals. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix continue to carry substantially larger valuations reflecting their more mature and diversified chip businesses, and analysts have noted that CXMT still trails those companies by several years in terms of advanced manufacturing capability, particularly for next-generation HBM chips. SK Hynix, for instance, has said it expects to begin large-scale production of its next-generation HBM4 chips by the end of this year, a timeline analysts expect CXMT’s own advanced memory production to lag behind.

Market analysts remain divided over whether CXMT’s extraordinary valuation reflects a sustainable, long-term shift in global memory chip supply chains toward greater Chinese participation, or a shorter-term surge driven primarily by AI-related memory shortages and limited available trading float in the stock’s early weeks on the market. One market strategist noted that a roughly 470% first-day gain, while not entirely without precedent among smaller Chinese listings, was particularly notable given CXMT’s substantial size, suggesting that a combination of limited free float and pent-up market sentiment played a significant role in driving the stock’s initial surge.

Morningstar has separately noted that the broader strategic significance of AI-related semiconductor self-sufficiency for China’s national security priorities has likely contributed to sustained investor demand for CXMT shares beyond what might be explained by the company’s current financial fundamentals alone, reflecting the broader political and economic weight Beijing has placed on developing homegrown alternatives to foreign-dominated segments of the global chip supply chain.

As CXMT’s rally continues into its fourth week of trading, the stock’s performance is likely to remain closely watched both as a barometer of investor sentiment toward China’s broader semiconductor self-sufficiency push and as a test case for how sustainably newly listed Chinese technology companies can maintain extraordinary post-IPO valuations once the initial wave of listing-driven enthusiasm begins to settle into more conventional trading patterns.