Grant Wahl, an American journalist, died at the World Cup during the Netherlands and Argentina – Soccer

Doha – “A journalist felt sick.” Rumors began to circulate in the stands of Lusail, the stadium that will host the final week of the tournament. world Cup. Tragedy happened there, before the eyes of skeptical fellows, with some fool portrayed, in the middle Netherlands and Argentinaa few meters away from Messi and Van Gaal. Grant WallThe 49-year-old was watching the FIFA World Cup finals for the eighth time. A few days ago he rewarded him FIFATo achieve this goal with other colleagues. But he was already talked about when, before the match between the United States and Wales, he said he was left off the field to put on the rainbow jersey. In the end – after everything was documented – he managed to enter, with so many apologies from the same Fifa that after a few days they awarded him a small edition of the World Cup to celebrate his career. Now the boss Gianni Infantino He wanted to remember her, thinking about that moment, with “infinite mistrust and sadness.”

Illness and death in the hospital

illness. Doctors stepped into the press box to try to resuscitate him and continued to do so while he was taken by ambulance to hospitalHamad General Hospital: I have no job because I work. But for days he began recounting how the body was failing: “Three weeks of too little sleep, too much stress and too much work.” In addition, he left for Doha with a simple cold, only made worse by these working conditions: “In the past 10 days it has turned into something more serious, the night of the USA-Netherlands game, I felt a lot of pressure. on my chest “. He also went to the hospital, where, apart from Covid, they diagnosed him with possible bronchitis, and gave him antibiotics and cough syrup. It was a cold Friday night in Lusail: the first day that the temperature in Doha dropped significantly.

He also told, Grant, how among the journalists there was “a general case of illness, coughs and colds. In short, how the conditions were not sensational (also because of the often severe air-conditioning). Wahl had been cooperating with CBS and NBC, The New York Times, And in the past he was a correspondent for Sports Illustrated: for the American magazine, he also interviewed Mario Balotelli.

Now FIFA and the embassy are working together to return his body as quickly as possible to his wife, Celine Gunder, a professor of medicine at New York University and employee at Bellevue Hospital, who also provides health aid to CBS, with whom Grant has collaborated.

Brother accuses: “murder”

However, the disease thesis is not convincing Eric WallAnd the Grant’s brother: “I don’t think my brother is dead, I think he was murdered” is the powerful accusation made via an Instagram video. “My name is Eric Wahl, I’m Grant’s brother and I’m gay – his words -. I’m the reason he wore the rainbow colored jersey during the World Cup. My brother was healthy and he told me he had death threats, I don’t think he died, I think they killed him.”