American soccer journalist Grant Wahl dies while covering FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Grant Wahl’s brother believes he did not die from natural causes and is pleading for help.
Famed American soccer journalist Grant Wahl died while covering the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. He was 48.
Wahl “fell ill” while covering the Argentina-Netherlands quarterfinal, a spokesperson for the Qatari World Cup planning committee told Fox News. After paramedics performed CPR for several minutes at the scene, he was taken to Hamad General Hospital.
Wahl had been “laughing at a joke we saw on Twitter” just minutes before reportedly collapsing, journalist Rafael Cores, who was sitting next to Wahl at the game, said.
“I’m in shock,” Cores said. “He was working on his story on his laptop, it was about 4 minutes before the end of the extra time.”
Wahl’s brother, Eric, announced his death on Instagram and made an emotional plea for help.
“I am gay. I am the reason he wore the rainbow shirt to the World Cup,” Eric Wahl said. “My brother was healthy. He told me he received death threats. I do not believe my brother just died. I believe he was killed, and I’m just begging for any help.”
Eric Wahl, the brother of sportswriter Grant Wahl who died in Qatar while covering the World Cup, is asking for help.
Grant was detained in Qatar for wearing a rainbow shirt two weeks ago pic.twitter.com/lak0b1UZwa
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) December 10, 2022
Eric Wahl referenced an incident Grant Wahl faced two weeks ago when he tried entering the stadium for the US-Wales match while wearing a rainbow pride shirt and was stopped by security.
“They demanded I take the shirt off. I refused. They then, right after I got a tweet off, forcibly took my cell phone and kept it for 30 minutes. I repeatedly kept asking to get it back. They wouldn’t give it to me,” Wahl told MSNBC late last month.
Just now: Security guard refusing to let me into the stadium for USA-Wales. “You have to change your shirt. It’s not allowed.” pic.twitter.com/TvSGThMYq8
— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) November 21, 2022
“They made me stand in front of a CCTV camera presumably with someone on the other end of it rendering some sort of judgment, and I told them this was not good for them to be doing this. Eventually, the security commander came and allowed me to go in and keep my shirt on and it went from there.
They apologized, FIFA apologized and, you know, it left me wondering about what it’s like for Qataris who are here outside of World Cups who are gay because this was something that I had to deal with at an event that was being covered globally.”