Grant Wahl, a well-respected football journalist who wrote extensively about the game, died on Friday in Qatar, where he was covering Argentina’s World Cup quarter-final match against the Netherlands in Doha .
Val’s agent, Tim Scanlon, confirmed his death in a phone interview Friday night. Scanlan said Val was in excruciating pain when he appeared on a news forum in the closing minutes of the quarter-final.
Scanlan said he was believed to have died in a Qatar hospital or, when he was taken to hospital, felt unwell during the match.
“He wasn’t sleeping well, and I asked him if he’d tried melatonin or something like that,” Scanlan said. “He said, ‘I just want to relax.'”
Val is playing in his eighth World Cup and has a tight schedule of coverage and appearances.
Val’s wife, Dr.Celine Gounder also confirmed her death post on twitter.
Wahl, 48, began his journalism career at Sports Illustrated in 1996, where he worked for 24 years. He initially covered college basketball and football — he wrote a famous cover story about LeBron James in 2002, when he was a high school student — but spent the next two decades covering only football , has participated in and written about every World Cup, and as the sport has grown in America, so has its profile.
“Grant’s passion for football and commitment to raising its profile in our sport has been instrumental in helping drive interest in and respect for our beautiful game,” the U.S. Soccer Federation said in a statement Friday night said in. Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber wrote that Wall “was a kind, caring man whose passion for football and dedication to journalism was immeasurable.”
Wahl, who has written about his health concerns in a series of reports in recent days, said he typically gets about five hours of sleep a night.
“My body is finally breaking,” he wrote on Monday. “Three weeks of sleep deprivation, stress and a heavy workload can get you like this.”
What appeared to be a common cold for more than a week “became a more serious cold” around December 12, he said. 3. When the United States played the Netherlands.
“I could feel new pressure and discomfort in my upper chest,” he wrote, adding that he had tested negative for the coronavirus. He said Qatari medical officials believed he had bronchitis. He said the antibiotics he received seemed to be working, and he was supported by 12 hours of sleep.
He celebrated his birthday with a party at his apartment on Wednesday night, which Scanlan said was on Thursday.