A journalist in attendance at the World Cup has lifted the lid on Grant Wahl’s final moments and the one tragic question everyone kept asking as medics desperately tried to save his life.
Wahl, one of America’s leading soccer reporters, died while covering the quarter-finals in Doha, according to his wife and the US Soccer federation.
The 48-year-old helped build soccer’s popularity in the United States through decades of vivid reporting at Sports Illustrated, then with CBS Sports.
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According to NPR, Wahl collapsed in the press tribune as the Argentina-Netherlands match was winding down. Paramedics performed CPR at the scene before taking him away on a stretcher. The Wall Street Journal said Wahl apparently suffered a heart attack.
Now Josh Glancy, a journalist for The Times UK, has given his first-hand account on what unfolded in the frantic final moments as medics tried to revive Wahl.
“Every once in a while, you hear the keen edge of panic in someone’s voice and know that death and his friends are nearby,” he wrote.
“Whatever mundanity you were enjoying at that moment is instantly forgotten.”
In this case, it was a thrilling Netherlands comeback that would eventually fall short but the result was still up in the air when Glancy described a “panicked voice” ringing out from the press box, calling for a medic.
“We all turned around to see a man in terrifying distress just behind us, clearly suffering some form of attack or seizure,” Glancy went on to add.
“We bellowed for a medic. The medics came quickly. I felt momentarily reassured. Perhaps it was a seizure. Maybe he needed an epipen. But they quickly started administering CPR and the entire press box was gripped with anxiety. CPR is a terrible sign. His heart must have stopped.”
What made it even worse though was that as the medics continued pumping Wahl’s chest, there was no defibrillator in sight. It was the question everyone kept asking, according to Glancy.
Where is it?
“Wahl’s many friends gathered round from different parts of the press box,” he wrote.
“One of them, the football journalist Guillem Balague, sat down next to me. They were rooming together for the tournament. “This isn’t real,” he muttered to himself, lost in shock. Speechless, I just put a hand on his shoulder.
Why wasn’t there a defibrillator? That was the question we kept asking each other, as the medics pumped and pumped to no avail.
“At this billion dollar state-of-the-art stadium, which has a VIP suite so lavish it includes a bedroom, which will host the World Cup final, why was there no defibrillator to hand?”
It is just one of many questions left unanswered after the tragedy, which left the football world stunned and Wahl’s wife “in complete shock”.
There was also scepticism surrounding the nature of Wahl’s death given he had been detained in Qatar on November 21 by security staff after he wore a rainbow shirt to the opening match between the US and Wales teams, showing support for LGBTQ rights in a country where same sex relations are outlawed.
Wahl said on his subscription newsletter earlier this week that he’d gone to a clinic at the media center in Qatar, “and they said I probably have bronchitis.”
“My body finally broke down on me. Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you… I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort,” he wrote.
With some antibiotics and “some heavy duty cough syrup” Wahl said he was “feeling a bit better just a few hours later. But still: No bueno.”
Wahl’s brother uploaded a video to social media in the wake of his death, alleging that the journalist had been killed.
In a later interview with The Star, he since said he regrets posting the video but still maintains that there should be transparency in how his brother’s death is investigated.
“There’s enough that I know in my conversations with Grant to make me legitimately suspicious, if nothing else,” Eric told The Star. “That’s why we want transparency.”
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Wahl joined Sports Illustrated in 1996, at the time the premiere US sports publication, to report on soccer. He remained at the magazine until 2020, joining CBS Sports a year later.
He also had launched a subscription email newsletter platform, and was posting to that during the World Cup.
State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Grant Wahl” and added that US authorities have been “in close communication” with his family.
“We are engaged with senior Qatari officials to see to it that his family’s wishes are fulfilled as expeditiously as possible,” Price wrote.
News of Wahl’s death triggered an outpouring of emotion from the soccer world, a sign of his role in promoting the sport — both amateur and professional — in the United States.
“Fans of soccer and journalism of the highest quality knew we could count on Grant to deliver insightful and entertaining stories about our game, and its major protagonists: teams, players, coaches and that many personalities that make soccer unlike any sport,” US Soccer said.
