
LUSAIL, Qatar — Grant Wahl, one of the most well-known soccer writers in the United States, collapsed and died early Saturday while covering the World Cup match in Qatar between Argentina and the Netherlands.
Wahl, who was 48, had made international news last month when he wrote of having been initially denied entry to a United States-Wales World Cup game on Nov. 21 and briefly detained by security for wearing a shirt with a soccer ball surrounded by a rainbow pattern in defiance of Qatari authorities. Gay and lesbian sex is criminalized in Qatar, a conservative Muslim emirate.