Grant Wahl had bronchitis, wasn’t sleeping well prior to World Cup death

Grant Wahl, a longtime and respected soccer journalist who died suddenly Friday at the World Cup in Qatar, wasn’t sleeping well in the days leading up to his death, his agent, Tim Scanlan, told the New York Times.

“I asked him if he tried melatonin or anything like,” Scanlan told the paper. “He said, ‘I just need to like relax for a bit.’”

On his podcast, “Futbol with Grant Wahl,” on Thursday, the 49-year-old Wahl also noted that he’d been struggling physically after 17 straight days of games.

Finally, he said, he took two days off from his extensive coverage of the month-long tournament, which is being played in a reduced timeframe with 64 matches over 29 days across eight venues and five cities.

“My body told me, even after the U.S. went out, dude you are not sleeping enough and it rebelled on me,” Wahl said on the podcast. “So I’ve had a case of bronchitis this week. I’ve been to the medical clinic at the media center twice now including today [Thursday]. I’m feeling better today. I basically canceled everything on this Thursday that I had and napped.

“And I’m doing slightly better. You can probably tell in my voice that I’m not at 100 percent here.”

Prior to the Americans’ game against Wales, Wahl had initially not been allowed into Ahmad bin Ali Stadium for wearing a t-shirt with a rainbow on it — the Qatari government cracked down on pro-LGBTQ demonstrations at the tournament despite promises not to do so. Wahl had also been a critic of Qatar’s government over its human rights abuses and its hosting of the World Cup.

Eric Wahl said that his brother received death threats while in Qatar because of the rainbow shirt and his reporting on FIFA and Qatar’s government.

Grant Wahl’s career spanned more than two decades at Sports Illustrated, where he rose to prominence as one of the magazine’s top writers. He also served as a soccer correspondent and analyst for CBS Sports and Fox Sports and authored the book, “The Beckham Experiment.”

On Monday, Wahl wrote that he wasn’t feeling well and had visited a medical clinic.

“My body finally broke down on me,” he wrote in a post on his newsletter. “Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you … What had been a cold over the last 10 days turned into something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort.”

Wahl’s wife, Céline R. Gounder, an American infectious disease physician who served on the COVID-19 Advisory Board transition team for President Joe Biden, said in a tweet after the news broke that she was “so thankful for the support of my husband @GrantWahl’s soccer family & of so many friends who’ve reached out tonight. I’m in complete shock.”