An American sports journalist who recently made headlines in Qatar for wearing a rainbow jersey in support of LGBT+ people died on Friday while covering the World Cup quarterfinal between Argentina and the Netherlands, organizers confirmed today.
Grant Wahl, 48, “fell ill in the press box at Lusail Stadium,” a spokesman for the organization’s supreme committee said.
The journalist received emergency medical treatment immediately and was taken by ambulance to Hamad General Hospital in Doha.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino sent “sincere condolences” from world soccer’s governing body and the “soccer community” to the journalist’s wife, family and friends.
Wahl wrote a book on David Beckham, covered eight consecutive men’s world championships and worked for Sports Illustrated from 1996 to 2020 before joining CBS Sports in 2021.
According to the North American radio station NPR, the journalist fainted in the press box as the match drew to a close.
A few days ago, Grant Wahl commented in his online newsletter that he had been to a clinic in the media center.
“They told me that I probably had bronchitis,” he wrote, adding: “My body finally gave up on me. Three weeks of little sleep, a lot of stress and work can have that effect (…) I could feel the upper part of my chest to take on a new level of pressure and discomfort.
The journalist’s wife, Celine Gounder, a famous infectious disease expert who appeared on television several times during the Covid-19 pandemic, wrote on Twitter that she was “completely in shock”.
For his part, State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted shortly after: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Grant Wahl.”
“Grant has made soccer his life’s work and we are devastated that he and his brilliant pen are no longer with us,” the United States Soccer Federation wrote in a statement.
Before the game between the United States and Wales on November 21, Wahl was detained by security personnel at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium for wearing a rainbow jersey, he wrote on Twitter. Being homosexual is a crime in the small Gulf emirate.
Source: TSF
