The Missing Ambassador of the World Cup

He covered soccer before it was cool, promised to go WikiLeaks on FIFA, then got detained and mysteriously collapsed in Qatar. If there was ever someone we needed to hear from, as a global conduit during this corrupt World Cup on American soil, it's Grant Wahl. So his former co-host, Chris Wittyngham — along with his family and one of the many stars he inspired — helps Pablo listen back to Wahl's lost tapes, re-live his fearless run for office and the rainbow target on his chest... then put the conspiracies to rest. • Previously on PTFO: America Signed Up for the World Cup. FIFA Stuck You with the Tab. https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/NmEyYTA2YmFiYzM2ZTVjYzAxNDYzMDYx • Listen to Le Batard & Friends re-live Grant Wahl's LeBron cover story https://pod.link/1896560592/episode/OWYzYTNjOTQtNGQ0Mi0xMWYxLWI0OGMtZmI4MjBlZDE4M2Rl • Subscribe to The Athletic https://theathletic.onelink.me/eNRy/ptfo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  If the world soccer fan can't stand Sepp Blatter, then why is he running again? So I decided, if three FIFA presidents have been sports journalists, then I can run for FIFA president, too.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Right after this ad. This episode is brought to you by apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another, and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes,

• 1:02Speaker 00

  from small businesses to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at apollo.io. That's apollo.io.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  Yo.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Bring it in.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  What's up? Just seeing this PTFO sweater.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, man. How are you doing?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, great.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, your schedule is...

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All over the place right now, yeah.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Um, wait, so what's your schedule from here?

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Uh, so we're... So at CBS, we're just doing stuff all day.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  I went to, as a fan, I bought a ticket and got... I went to Scotland-Haiti, which is awesome.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, watching from home, that looked like...

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Amazing. I was standing in line for a beer, and there was all these people who just randomly started hugging for no reason. Because Haiti hadn't made it since 1974, and there are all the other things they're in. And Scotland hadn't made it since 98. And they're just there for a giant party. And they're like, "Oh, my God, we're here. We're doing it."

• 2:10Speaker 00

  One of the things... Chris Whittingham, thank you for being here, by the way.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, no problem.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Uh, one of the things about the World Cup that always hits me, once it gets going, is like...

• 2:19Pablo Torre?

  As much as I think the thing we were just caring about, the NBA Finals or any other sporting event, is the thing, the World Cup is, it's one of a kind.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, you feel it in this city as well, even on the subway over, they have like the wrapped ones and you see the jerseys. And it is such an incredible cultural exchange, on top of it being the world's biggest sporting event by a mile. I was blown away that the combined TV rating number in English and Spanish was bigger than the first four NBA Finals game for the US game on Friday night. I was astounded by that because it just goes to show, number one, people love throwing themselves in the flag, but it is this thing that is now being reintroduced to America for the first time in 32 years, that it just transcends in a way that very few other things do. Actually, I would legitimately say nothing does. It wasn't always that way, but it is now.

• 3:13Pablo Torre?

  I was doing my own like historical review of the 94 World Cup. In the 80s, there is a house debate on Capitol Hill about whether the US should support bidding for the 94 World Cup, and Jack Kemp, former Republican from New York, NFL quarterback, said, quote, "Football," as in the NFL, "football is democratic capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport." And then USA Today, that same year, a writer says that the case being made by soccer's fanboys is, quote, "What the Russians told us about communism."

• 3:50Speaker 02

  That it is this secret psy-op that is here to plant in the minds of Americans to be anti-American. It's hilarious.

• 4:01Pablo Torre?

  But it was accused of being this whole like foreign operation. And the person I think about, in terms of the Americans who've been trying to explain, like, hey, this is a real story, the math on this is not fake, this is actually the most popular thing on the planet, is the guy that both of us used to work with.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:20Pablo Torre?

  Who I think about all of the time, but especially... During this time of year, during this World Cup, Grant Wahl. And for people who don't know of Grant, who didn't know his work as a journalist, how would you summarize him?

• 4:36Speaker 02

  I would say he was America's preeminent soccer journalist, and that has multiple tentacles. Because he was this sort of conduit from the world to the United States. There are a lot of people that came to Grant to tell the story of the sport in the country. But at the same time, while being a sort of very big force in that way, you also, by virtue of being a soccer writer, have to be an evangelist for the sport and presumably continually ask the editors at Sports Illustrated and the American public to please care about this thing that the entire world cares about. We are one of the very few countries for whom football is not the number one sport in the country.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  You're talking about, obviously, Australia, you're talking about India with cricket. But in terms of big nations, all of South America, the lion's share of Europe, most of the world.

• 5:29Pablo Torre?

  It feels insane to have to summarize how much the world cares about soccer.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Especially when he sort of was starting in the mid to late 90s as sort of this person who was saying, okay, I am a college basketball writer from Kansas. I'm going to eschew that to become this evangelist for this sport that is massive around the world, but day by day, step by step, is getting bigger in the United States, but still kind of needs explanation even to this day.

• 5:55Pablo Torre?

  Right. And I should say that when I was a fact checker at Sports Illustrated and Grant Wahl was a senior writer, the legend of him, first of all, he was the number one college basketball writer in America at Sports Illustrated. And then, he was also the LeBron cover guy.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:10Pablo Torre?

  Somebody who took pride in like knowing what the next big thing was gonna be. When you think of that LeBron Sports Illustrated cover when he's in high school and it's, you know, it's the thing that stamps, hey, you should pay attention to this. This, that's Grant as well.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:24Pablo Torre?

  And so, one person I talked to, of course I had to, is Celine Gounder, Dr. Celine Gounder, a noted epidemiologist, and also somebody who was, in this context, very important to understand, because she married Grant Wahl.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  He had to fight. He really did have to fight to get soccer

• 6:48Speaker 04

  in the pages of the magazine. I'm trying to remember, was it the French World Cup in 98? I want to say that it was not on the cover, that it was Mike Ditka with a cigar that ended up making the cover that week. And he was just like, I would say he'd be tearing his hair out over it, except he didn't have any hair, but like, he was just, could not understand how we did not see the importance of that win. How incredible.

• 7:20Pablo Torre?

  And for people who don't remember, so 98, the World Cup was in Paris. It was won by France, Zinedine Zidane, you know, this is the header.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Not the headbutt, but the header.

• 7:40Pablo Torre?

  A different iconic moment involving his skull, his also bald skull. But this is what SI put on the cover instead.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 7:48Pablo Torre?

  There it is.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  New Orleans coach, Mike Ditka, wants all of us to forsake vice and become real saints.

• 7:56Pablo Torre?

  Holy smoke!

• 7:57Speaker 02

  And then on the top left corner, a very small print, "Sucker Blue, France Stuns Brazil."

• 8:03Pablo Torre?

  As Mike Ditka is holding a cigar. It's July, and we put the NFL on the cover in 98.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. It is still stunning. I don't think people quite understand the clawing for relevance that really isn't that long ago. That was 28 years ago. I remember when I was working in local radio. Miami is always the biggest market for the World Cup, always, because of the multiculturalism and the text machine that we used to have that would like get texts from the audience. It was always, "Stop this. Stop talking about this. Tell me about Dolphins mini camp, please." And this was not that long ago.

• 8:41Pablo Torre?

  And so you can imagine, just like the timeline at Sports Illustrated, as again, this stand-in for mainstream sports media, we go now to 99. And Grant Wahl, and you can imagine the triumph here. In 1999, the US women's national team, of course, wins the World Cup and Grant finally gets his cover of Sports Illustrated. And this is, of course, unforgettable. Can you describe the image that ends up gracing people's mailboxes?

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, of course, the United States are earning the World Cup final of 1999. I believe it was against China. To this day, is right up there in terms of top attendances ever for a US soccer match. Over 90,000 at the Rose Bowl. They go to a penalty shootout and Brandi Chastain has it on her foot to win the World Cup for the United States and she scores it. Goal! And rips off her top to reveal a sports bra. And at the time, it was incredibly risque thing to do. It becomes the sort of enduring image of a number of things. United States soccer period, women's soccer period, this sort of proud feminism. It becomes an extraordinary image that is seen on TV and sort of has to be captured

• 9:53Speaker 02

  in some way in terms of a legacy and Grant plays a big role in doing that.

• 9:57Pablo Torre?

  Oh yeah, we talked to Brianna Scurry, who was the goalkeeper. The shot, save Scurry! And the notion of self-assertion as seen in that photograph and as seen in the coverage by Grant, it still sticks out to her.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  The only place you found soccer was literally where Grant wrote about it. He was covering soccer way before it was cool. He wasn't like, ooh, women's soccer, ooh, 99, now they're famous, now let me, let me show up and let me, let me talk to these girls. And he was there from the beginning when nobody really cared. When, when, you know, soccer was number five out of five and other popular sports in, in the United States.

• 10:38Pablo Torre?

  I mean, let's just be very blunt about this. Having someone like Grant saying, "This is important." I mean, this meant so much to these players.

• 10:48Speaker 05

  He means a lot to me and to our team and the rise of women's soccer in this country. He's right there with the rest of us who actually were on the pitch as a representation of the rise off the pitch as well.

• 11:02Pablo Torre?

  And yet, at the same time, what I loved, what I marvel at still... In retrospect today is that Grant was also an investigator.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:12Pablo Torre?

  He was somebody who was, because of his love for something, trying to take it seriously, which means reporting on it.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  You have to, again, tell people that this is great, that the world loves this and that you should care about this thing while also spotlighting its flaws. These are sort of generally seen as two things that would be at odds.

• 11:38Pablo Torre?

  But what Grant did after being fired by Sports Illustrated during COVID in 2020, unceremoniously, I might add, was start an independent podcast and newsletter, which I personally found inspiring. Not least because what it did was blend onsite coverage at the World Cup, for instance, with actual reporting about the host country, as with his scrutiny of the human rights scandals, plural, in Qatar in 2022. Which happens to bring me now to the origin story of Grant's friendship with our guest today, CBS Sports host and soccer commentator, Chris Whittingham.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  I listen to his podcast every week. And so I reached out to him and I was like, hey, you know, I'm available, it's COVID, and I have all the time in the world to edit podcasts. You need help with that. He's like, no, I'm gonna try it on my own. And like, three days later, he's like, I need your help with this. And so it began as sort of a non-speaking role. It was just sort of editing the thing. And then he was like, why don't you just come on? Because we do this before the show. Why don't you just come on and do it on the show?

• 12:40Speaker 06

  Hey there, welcome to Football with Grant Wahl. Thanks so much for joining me. I am in Qatar doing daily coverage of World Cup 22. Let's bring in Chris Whittingham. How are you, my friend?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  I am recharging after the World Cup round of 16. And I'm trying to get some rest and get fired up for these quarterfinals because there are some tasty matchups on offer here.

• 13:03Speaker 06

  I am very excited. And I took some time off myself. We had two days here without games after 17 straight days of games. And my body, I think, told me, dude, you are not sleeping enough. And it rebelled on me. And 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. I'm feeling better today. I basically can't.

• 13:29Pablo Torre?

  And the day after, Chris and Grant taped that podcast together that you just heard. Grant went to go cover a World Cup quarterfinal in Qatar. Netherlands, Argentina.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  I had sent him several texts saying, when are we recording? What time? Hanging out here in my apartment. Whenever you're ready, I'm good to go. And it sort of went unanswered for 90 minutes to two hours. And then I actually got a text off someone who works here at Metal Arc Media. And they said, hey, have you heard anything about Grant? And I said, no, no, I haven't heard anything. He goes, well, I've heard some things that aren't great. I was like, well, what do you mean? And, you know, described sort of an idea of a medical event.

• 14:11Pablo Torre?

  Grant Wahl had collapsed, it turned out, in the press box near the end of that match. And immediately, as fast as they could, got rushed to the hospital, planting all sorts of seeds of doubt and questions and theories. Because Grant, as you heard earlier, had just been talking about bronchitis and feeling exhausted. And so, this was 2022, what if he had COVID? What if that was it? His wife, Celine Gounder, is an epidemiologist, an expert in the pandemic. What if all of this had to do with a COVID vaccine?

• 14:51Pablo Torre?

  Multiple people I talked to were wondering at the time if Grant had been poisoned even by some autocrat, some official who wanted to silence his reporting. They were wondering aloud if foul play had been involved. We do begin with that breaking news tonight, a mysterious death overseas.

• 15:12Speaker 07

  American soccer journalist Grant Wahl has died while covering the World Cup in Qatar. FIFA released a statement with reaction from President Gianni Infantino. He said, "It is with disbelief and immense sadness that I've been made aware of the passing of renowned sports journalist Grant Wahl whilst reporting on a quarterfinal match." Only some days ago, Grant was recognized by FIFA and AIPS for his contribution to reporting on eight consecutive World Cups. The White House Press Secretary calling Wall "an inspiration to many." Tennis legend Billie Jean King, U.S. men's soccer player Tyler Adams, and actor Brendan Hunt also among the latest paying respects.

• 15:50Speaker 06

  Very fond of Grant, you know, me being a teenager and him covering that. It was a, it was a pretty cool thing. I've always kind of watched from a distance, you know, even when I, you know, moved up in the ranks, you know, he kind of went to a different sport and things of that nature over the years. Anytime his name would come up, I'll always think back to me as a teenager and having Grant, you know, in our building down at SAV. So it's a tragic loss. It's unfortunate, you know, to lose someone as great as he was.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I was in shock. I remember just being paralyzed for probably about 12 hours. And then you sort of spring into trying to help Celine. I talked to Celine with any information I might have, his brother Eric as well. But yeah, I just remember being shell shocked. And also, and this was the thing that I've sort of held on to for a long time is just wanting to talk about that game with him.

• 16:52Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, the instinct of if there is one person that I wish we could hear from.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:59Pablo Torre?

  During this World Cup in the United States, it's Grant.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  There's so many things that have happened since where me and several of his other mutual friends have gone, wanted to hear what Grant had to say about this. And obviously, this World Cup is the biggest one by a mile.

• 17:33Pablo Torre?

  The end of June and July can be a really rough period for sports fans with football still a few months away and basketball and hockey ended. But this year, we're pretty lucky because not only is there a World Cup, there is a World Cup in our backyard. And so make sure to check out the Athletic Podcast Network to stay up to date on all things related to the World Cup. You can wake up with the Totally Football Show from LA, then dive deep into the biggest talking point of the day with the Athletic FC Podcast. And you can watch the Tifo Podcast fool around on their daily live streams in the afternoon. All shows are free to watch or listen on your favorite podcast platform.

• 18:16Pablo Torre?

  When I say that Grant Wahl was the guy who I consider the number one authority on soccer, I don't just mean that journalistically. I also mean that he tried to become the number one authority in the world of soccer via election, which is crazy, but a real thing that happened.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  He wanted to be the authority of soccer as president of FIFA.

• 18:43Pablo Torre?

  Which is like, we love, we love doing stupid things seriously. If Pablo Torre finds out.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. People were that disillusioned with FIFA at the time. There was the awarding of the World Cup hosting rights, which really caught the United States off guard when it went to Qatar and to Russia as well in 2018. And there were all these things that people thought, man, why isn't there anyone running this organization who seems to like it? Who actually wants it to get better, to improve, that thinks of fans rather than the sort of internal politics of this place in Switzerland that had very little connection to the world, it seemed.

• 19:21Pablo Torre?

  Right. And so Sepp Blatter, who is the incumbent FIFA president and FIFA president, again, the all powerful title, the emperor of world football, Sepp Blatter kept on running unopposed. And amid all of these issues with corruption and the cash for votes scandal in 2010, February 17th, 2011, something that-

• 19:41Pablo Torre?

  I look back on and I can't help but laugh.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Seth Blatter has been president of FIFA for 13 years. Even Blatter admits that FIFA's reputation has been tarnished under his watch. On June 1st, he's running for reelection. But now, there's a cure for FIFA's bladder infection.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Grant Wahl and I'm running for FIFA president. Good luck. Thank you. If the world soccer fans can't stand Seth Blatter, then why is he running again? So I decided, if three FIFA presidents have been sports journalists, then I can run for FIFA president too. I'm convinced that if the world soccer fans got to vote, I would beat Seth Blatter in a landslide. I just need one country's federation to heed the popular will and nominate me by the April 1st deadline.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Vote Grant Wahl for FIFA president. The people's choice.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  My name is Grant Wahl, and you better believe I have proved this.

• 20:43Pablo Torre?

  If you want to know why people were theorizing that Grant Wahl's death may have come at the hands of enemies of his approach to journalism, this part of Grant's career is one reason why. Because Grant would not only not shut up, his actual platform was more than just better referees and instant replay. It was about transparency. And how, if Grant Wahl were to actually be elected by FIFA's voters, its member countries, he would expose corruption.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  I'll clean up FIFA the only way possible, by releasing all of its internal documents to the public. We're gonna go WikiLeaks on FIFA.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  The one thing that I think a lot of people don't understand about FIFA is that it is a one vote per country system. If you've won five World Cups like Brazil, or you basically don't have a football team like American Samoa, you have the same voting rights. And so, you're really just trying to go to one of these smaller territories. Can you buck against the trend? And... Nominate me for president, but it actually sort of works out as the opposite. Where those small voting associations, they get the same payout from FIFA that everyone else does. So they are massively less incentivized, having no real power in the world of football, to just go with the flow and let's keep this cash train moving.

• 22:06Pablo Torre?

  Yes. One of the things you learn through Grant's accounting of his campaign is, the voters that might seem from afar are ostensibly persuadable, are among the least.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:20Pablo Torre?

  Because, yes, whether you're the US or Dominica, or somewhere in between, as he puts it, Sweden, Chile, Ireland, Israel, none of them had the guts to do it. Which, of course, stuck out at that point to his wife.

• 22:33Speaker 04

  He reached out to, there's over 200 different national federations. So at the time, the rules were you just needed one to nominate you. And he actually got pretty close with some, but in the end could not get a single one. And that was essentially the expose, that you could not get even one, that this was how closed the process was.

• 22:59Pablo Torre?

  So the whole thing about this stunt being like wacky and like, ah, here's an American trying to, you know, again, of course, an American wants to run the whole thing.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 23:06Pablo Torre?

  The actual upshot of this is astounding. Because one of my favorite things in sports that you get to see, only on rare, special occasions, is someone whose impact on the game ends up forcing a rule change.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  They were scared of it. I mean, that very clearly indicates, we can't let this sort of idea, because it garnered worldwide press. There are people around the world who wanted to talk to Grant, like, yeah, this is great, can you do this, please? And they would have been scared that maybe one association does nominate, and maybe, you know, he's able to convince, somehow appeal to the hearts and minds of the greater voting public within FIFA, and go on and win the thing, and end this machine that they have rolling at the time.

• 23:47Pablo Torre?

  And instead, what FIFA decides to do is something that he also explained on the Longform Podcast in 2016.

• 23:54Speaker 06

  Where it's gonna go from here, my FIFA presidential campaign didn't exactly work out in the end. Yeah, we didn't talk about that. You ran for president of FIFA. That again was sort of prescient, that was before. For all of these takedown scandals. Yeah, and it was fun. I caused them to change their rules where to run for FIFA president now, you literally have to be an insider and have like two of the previous five years in football administration, soccer administration, which is actually a problem because if you had an outsider like a Kofi Anan, who I think would be great to take over a new FIFA, according to their rules right now, he cannot run. Right. I had a good experience doing it in 2011. It was fun. It got people to thinking, I think,

• 24:37Speaker 06

  why does no one ever run against this Sep Blatter guy? And really put out some of the, like, honestly, common sense issues that needed to be considered about making FIFA cleaner, or trying to, or getting it a point where it wasn't this kind of joke of an organization.

• 24:58Pablo Torre?

  I mean, the aftermath of Grant's unsuccessful campaign brings us to this sort of buffet of self-dealing and, in the eyes of the Justice Department, criminal activity.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Now at 11, FIFA raid.

• 25:13Speaker 04

  They corrupted the business of worldwide soccer to serve their interests and to enrich themselves.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Leaders of soccer's global governing body accused of tarnishing the sport by taking $150 million in bribes and payoffs.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Seven high-ranking officials of FIFA, soccer's international governing body, were arrested at a five-star hotel in Switzerland. They're among 14 people indicted by US prosecutors. Yeah, I mean, at that time, Loretta Lynch was in charge of the Justice Department, and I remember these raids that go on in Switzerland where these people are basically chucked out of their beds in the middle of the night and say, you know, you're under arrest under US jurisdiction. It included the takedown of Chuck Blazer, who admitted to conspiring with other members of the FIFA executive committee to accept bribes for the hosting rights for the 2010 World Cup, which went to South Africa, including a failed bid for Morocco to host. They will host in 2030.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  But there are all of these people that were all of a sudden under the purview of the American government, never mind the public that thought, what's going on within this organization?

• 26:22Pablo Torre?

  Right. It gets to the point where in June 2015, Sep Blatter is forced to resign as FIFA president.

• 26:29Speaker 06

  FIFA chief Seth Blatter has said he's to step down just four days after being re-elected to a fifth term at the helm of football's world-governing body, which has embroiled in a corruption scandal. The 79-year-old made the announcement during a hastily-convened press conference in Zurich, saying that although he decided to stand again because he was convinced it was the best option for football, he added that his mandate does not seem to be supported by everyone in the world.

• 26:56Pablo Torre?

  We've been watching prequels to the rise of Gianni Infantino. That's the guy who replaces Blatter, the job that I think Grant Wahl should have had. Gianni Infantino, one of his aspects of the campaign was, "I need to sit down with Grant Wall." And so, this is February 25, 2016. This is the day before Infantino gets elected president, and they meet.

• 27:23Speaker 06

  What are the most important parts of your plan as FIFA president? We have to be very transparent, very open. And for me, for me, the most important part is the transparency on the money flows. If you are transparent, and FIFA has nothing to hide on generating money, it's good that FIFA generates money. So, where the money comes from and where it goes, and if this is transparent, we have solved 95% of the real or perceived problems of FIFA.

• 27:50Pablo Torre?

  Nothing to hide. It's staggering that, at the time, he was incredibly popular, because first off, really, his name at the time was not Gianni Infantino, his name was not Seth Blatter. And people were so excited at this idea, and he said all of the right things. That sounds like the kind of FIFA that leads to a better place. Well, the idea that Gianni Infantino would sit down with the guy in Grant Wahl, who was not only the number-one American soccer journalistic authority, but also the guy who was calling for transparency, is a recognition that, okay, yeah, there are some things I gotta change, and so let me go and address this with the guy who was most vociferously calling for it.

• 28:31Pablo Torre?

  And again, just yet another tragedy of this is, I would love to know what Grant thinks of what Gianni Infantino has become since.

• 28:41Speaker 06

  Mr. President, this is your prize, this is your peace prize. There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go.

• 28:55Speaker 06

  Right now. Okay, let me hold. Ah, fantastic. Excellent.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  He has World Cup to World Cup from Russia. I think it was sort of a little bit more tenuous, but Qatar, he was all in. And obviously, he has been completely all in with the president for 2026 as well. He sort of has this way of showing, basically, this thing is in their hands. And FIFA plays a role, but I'm going to completely embrace what whoever's in charge of the country they were going to has to say and wants to do. And it's completely different to what he said he was going to do.

• 29:36Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, when he said, quote, "It's good that FIFA generates money."

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I suppose that part does, does hold up.

• 29:52Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. One thing you learn quickly as a journalist is that you should go directly to the experts when you want the best info, the ones who live it every day. And when it comes to jackets,

• 30:33Pablo Torre?

  what could possibly make you a better expert than being a Jackson Hole local? STEO is designed and tested in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, right at the base of the Tetons by the locals who ski, bike, climb, and fish every day there. STEO has been at it since 2011, and 15 years in, it's the real gear that the locals live in. These folks live through Wyoming winters, so they know warm. The Hometown Down jacket, for instance, is 800 fill-down, but somehow feels more like your favorite hoodie than some puffy coat. I just ordered my own jacket after hearing about the brand from my producer, who practically lives in his. And he promised me that with a STIO jacket, it'll feel like the warmest New York winter I have ever had. And looking through their website, it is not your typical outdoor gear.

• 31:19Pablo Torre?

  The stuff does look good anywhere. You don't have to sacrifice looks for warmth. It'll become the jacket you grab every time you leave your house. And with ski season almost here, make sure to gear up now the way the locals do. Go to stio.com/ptfo for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash P-T-F-O. stio.com/ptfo. STIO, designed and tested in Jackson Hole.

• 31:54Pablo Torre?

  And so all of this now takes us back to Qatar and the 2022 World Cup, where Grant had shown up as an independent journalist and podcaster wanting to cover two huge stories. The first of them having to do with the reported 6,500 migrant workers who died in the country in the decade after Qatar was awarded the World Cup. This according to The Guardian. But Grant really wanted to see it for himself.

• 32:24Speaker 06

  I'm in Doha, Qatar, and it's several months ahead of the World Cup. And I haven't publicized that I'm in Qatar for a reason because I just want to speak to migrant workers. And I want to ask them what their experience is like, how they've been treated by their employers, whether they're actually able to change jobs under the new laws here in Qatar. Because we hear a lot from the Qataris and the World Cup Supreme Committee here about all the advances that have taken place.

• 33:07Speaker 06

  And yet, there are still reports that things haven't changed that much. So, um, a lot of questions here. Uh, I am trying to lay low. I came here by myself. I didn't come with any cameras. I have zero desire to be detained. And to be honest, The Qataris should want independent journalists to come and ask questions and find out what the real story is, because that's the only way people are going to believe them.

• 33:44Pablo Torre?

  But that story was only one of the two scandals that he was pursuing during that 2022 World Cup. And the second one raised even more questions about who would have wanted Grant Wahl silenced?

• 34:02Pablo Torre?

  This is the part that has stuck in my brain most vividly, because for those not familiar, in Qatar, same-sex marriage is not just illegal. There are many reports, according to Human Rights Watch, of gay citizens being abused, detained. It's among the most dangerous destinations for LGBTQ travelers, according to lots of reporting.

• 34:23Speaker 06

  In Qatar for the World Cup today, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and avid soccer fans from youth criticized FIFA's decision to threaten World Cup players with yellow cards if they wear One Love armbands supporting gay rights. Qatar's laws forbid gay relationships. Blinken, leading the U.S. delegation, spoke out.

• 34:42Pablo Torre?

  And into that same setting walks Grant and his notebook.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Again, this is sort of one of those ways in which you are part journalist and part advocate. He strongly advocated on behalf of the community to be able to freely enter the country and freely enjoy the World Cup as any other person could enjoy the World Cup.

• 35:00Pablo Torre?

  Well, he was also fact-checking what Johnny Infantino had said in public.

• 35:05Speaker 06

  I've been speaking about this topic with the highest leadership of the country several times, not just once. They have confirmed, and I can confirm, that everyone is welcome. This is a clear FIFA requirement. Everyone has to be welcomed. Everyone that comes to Qatar is welcome, whatever religion, race, sex.

• 35:34Pablo Torre?

  Sex orientation, belief she or he has. And so Grant ends up doing interviews and he tells you, Chris, some of what he learned.

• 35:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, if you read my website, part of the Qatar Chronicles, part two, was about what US soccer has been doing to get prepared for coming to Qatar. And they had hired, and I interviewed, a compliance officer who's lived here for last six years or so, Lisa Saad. And we specifically talked about the rainbow flag and like, what about fans or anybody, visitors here, wearing the rainbow flag in a country where same-sex relationships are illegal? But FIFA and Lisa Saad, by the way, told me, like, everyone has told me that, you know, if you just have a rainbow flag, there is no problem at all.

• 36:27Speaker 06

  The problem will come if you've had a few drinks and you're making out with your gay partner in public. And then there definitely will be a problem.

• 36:37Pablo Torre?

  All of it is to say that Grant makes this conscious decision to pack a particular item of clothing, given the reporting he's just done.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he packs this black t-shirt with a ring in the middle, which has an image of a soccer ball and then a sort of rainbow cascading from it.

• 36:56Pablo Torre?

  And so that shirt, I should also call attention to this visually. That shirt did recur. It did make another appearance in my conversation with Celine. I can't help but notice that you are wearing a particular t-shirt that for those who are not watching but are merely listening, that they may need to be caught up on. Could you explain the shirt that you're wearing?

• 37:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I'm gonna tilt down so you can see a little bit better. It is not the identical one that Grant wore. I actually gave the one Grant wore in Qatar to his brother as a gift. His brother Eric is gay. His brother had experienced harassment and bullying growing up in Kansas City as a gay boy in the 70s and 80s. His brother Eric actually told him not to wear it. Because he was afraid of what that would mean. Grant wore it anyway.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Which was sort of this declaration that football is meant to be inclusive of LGBTQ people as well. And so he wears this shirt to a stadium at the World Cup and they basically prevent him from entering the stadium with the shirt on.

• 38:06Speaker 06

  I get to the stadium, go through the media, check in. And from the moment I get there, security says, like, puts me aside and they're letting other media people go through. They're like, oh, this is interesting. And then, but I still wasn't 100% certain it was about the shirt I was wearing. And then a guard said, your shirt, you have to remove it. And I was like, no. I don't know, I mean, I don't know how many times I said no to these guys.

• 38:36Speaker 06

  10, 15, 20? At one point, this security guard is looming over me angrily demanding that I take my shirt off. I was like, no. I will not do that. I knew what my rights were.

• 38:53Pablo Torre?

  And as I hear Grant tell you about this at the time, it reminds me, like, this is, this is in the tradition of his FIFA presidency, of his campaign, his stunt. But on some level, when you see the shirt, you are also reminded of how utterly inoffensive it is.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Yes. Imagery that is so normal, that is so inoffensive.

• 39:16Pablo Torre?

  There's no acronym on it, it's just a rainbow around a soccer ball.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  The other fascinating thing too is Pablo, that you're not going to see the Emir of Qatar. The fact that this message would have come from somewhere very high and trickled all the way down the levels to where the security people outside of the stadium are aware to see the shirt, that that color pattern was enough to evoke, oh no, I need to stop this.

• 39:41Speaker 06

  It's not like I am doing something provocative. I have family members who are gay, I have lots of friends who are gay, and I can't help but think about the gay people who are in Qatar and what they have to deal with and and fear and jail and, you know, what it's like when it's not during the World Cup. And if I'm getting treated.

• 40:10Speaker 06

  As a visitor, as an American, as someone who has, you know, a somewhat significant media following, well, then how are those people being treated?

• 40:20Speaker 06

  And that's pretty awful to think about.

• 40:22Pablo Torre?

  And the other part that was classic Grant Wahl was that he used his megaphone to tell the world about all of this. And it made its way back to very notable sports figures like Brian Asbury.

• 40:37Speaker 05

  I had just finished reading, you know, how he wore the, the target, the rainbow, the rainbow target on his chest. And I just laughed. I'm like, that's Grant. And I'm like, the man has no fear. He just, he just did it. And then.

• 40:57Pablo Torre?

  So all of that is the pretext. That's the image. Everybody is imagining around the world, this journalist who had been detained, when just two weeks after that, he collapsed and Celine recalled what it was like for her to hear about it.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  People had tried to resuscitate and perform CPR, but he was quickly taken away by ambulance. And so I figured out which hospital it was, called the hospital. They didn't know anything yet. Finally, a couple hours, maybe two, three hours later, I get a call from the attending physician in the ER. He said, your husband is no more.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  And that's how I got the news. Yeah.

• 41:44Pablo Torre?

  That's more than a clinical diagnosis. That's this oddly translated, just like declaration, isn't it?

• 41:51Speaker 04

  And then that's why I'll never forget the words. There was something just strange about that. It's like, not only is he dead, he's gone in this whole other way.

• 42:02Pablo Torre?

  I gotta point out, Chris, you know, talking to Dr. Celine Gounder, who is, again, an epidemiologist, who. Navigated public health communications during COVID. I mean, she has the ability as she-

• 42:16Speaker 02

  During the first Ebola outbreak as well?

• 42:18Pablo Torre?

  Oh, my God. Just like her ability to very calmly compartmentalize and explain tragic things affecting lots of people. I was struck by that. And I was also struck by the way in which that scene, that line, "Your husband is no more." It was just the beginning of the nightmare for her because it is worth remembering that as a perfectly seemingly healthy 49-year-old, there was not just speculation around foul play, but also because of the COVID vaccine, there was now this, this response that was targeting his wife.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:59Speaker 04

  Grant had been very supportive and also encouraging others to get their vaccinations. Um, you know, 22, we were still not out of the woods with COVID yet. You had people saying, "Oh, why are all these young people dying suddenly? Must be the COVID vaccines." And they said this about Grant. And the meanness, the cruelty of "You killed your husband," that I got from people, I mean, I think that just speaks to what their actual incentives are and their, their values.

• 43:29Pablo Torre?

  And I just, you know, I just want to acknowledge how fucked up.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And how sort of chilling that is. Imagine you're sort of dealing with this unimaginable tragedy. You thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with this person, and then it sort of becomes this political lightning rod, the death of your own husband that you're still struggling even three and a half years later. Even the way that she was talking there and the way that I have felt at times recording this episode, it still is incredibly hard to process. When you were talking to her, there's some clips there in the video of the dog running up to her. I was like, "Oh, my God, I haven't seen that dog in, I haven't seen that dog in four years." That dog used to run up to him and interrupt tapings all the time. It's like, "Oh, like, the dog's barking in the background. I gotta go run and deal with the dog." And it's just-

• 44:12Pablo Torre?

  I'm dealing with it still. And the fact that in the process of that, I was reading those replies to her too. Going, what the hell's wrong with you people? Another way in which this was foreshadowing, just like the darkness that would sort of immerse our country. But what she does, because she is a physician and epidemiologist and someone who is searching for clarity for her own sake and for the sake of quieting this apparent discourse, what she does is she gets an autopsy. She has Grant's body examined. And the conclusion, according to what the medical examiner found after a very thorough

• 44:52Pablo Torre?

  and rigorous examination, is something called an ascending aortic aneurysm. A blood vessel that carries oxygenated blood from the heart, it ruptured because it had weakened, apparently slowly and in a way that was undetected over time. And Celine had to, of course, explain that to people.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  I had some ideas about what it might be and aortic aneurysms were on the list. There is a list of conditions, pulmonary embolisms or another, that can cause sudden death in otherwise young, healthy people. And so, even before they completed the full autopsy, the initial findings, they knew what it was. So when they gave me that news, it was sort of like, okay, that makes sense, makes sense. And the other reason, as it turned out, that having the autopsy was so important is not just conspiracy theories about what he killed, but also conspiracy theories about whether COVID killed him or COVID vaccines, I should say more precisely.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  And so, being able to put all the different conspiracy theories to rest, having that understanding of what actually happened was an important source of closure.

• 46:12Pablo Torre?

  Which means that here, we can also say with great certainty that it was not the bronchitis that was mentioned by Grant in that podcast he did with you the day before he died. That wasn't it. It wasn't an assassination. It wasn't some other conspiracy. It was something that was, in its own way, mundane, insofar as...

• 46:40Pablo Torre?

  How could you have even guessed that this would be something that Grant was dealing with?

• 46:44Speaker 02

  And that not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes, things just happen.

• 46:49Pablo Torre?

  And because Celine, who is again so gracious to talk to us for this episode, because she's the number one champion of make sure you get the facts right about what happened to my husband, it also lets us truly celebrate the facts he did get right as a journalist, which I wanna also say he did tell you about, Chris, just days before he passed.

• 47:15Speaker 06

  It's something I felt when I came here in February and talked to my grunt workers, was that there's a decent chance I might get detained. I got detained today. And, you know, and if that happens, then does it help to have 800,000 followers on Twitter? Yeah, better believe it. But also, it helps to be a journalist with a US passport. And I knew coming here that I had that behind me. And so even if I had gotten detained, I was like, I made the calculation of you're doing the right thing. I just think it's really important to be on the right side of history with all this stuff.

• 47:51Pablo Torre?

  I often feel like we're living in a documentary, whether we know it or not. And it's important to be the good guys in the documentary. It is another thing, though, to, as Grant did, actually go to the places and report to things so that people know what the difference between truth and disinformation looks like.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  And to use whatever influence and power, and he sort of mentioned the things that are in his favor. He's a white guy, he's an American journalist, he has all these things, and he can get into his megaphone, to the world, to incredibly important people, messages that are worth hearing. There are plenty of people who have accrued that level of following and use it to talk about far more trivial things. And I'm not necessarily saying that everyone who gets into this has to be outspoken about governments and outspoken about governing bodies. I'm not like holding everyone to that standard. I don't hold myself to that standard. I don't have the gumption that he has. But when you do, it's incredibly powerful, and it can do a lot of good for a lot of people.

• 48:56Pablo Torre?

  And I also just need to acknowledge too, Chris, that you're doing us a real service here by remembering your friend.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's not a service to you. It's a service to him, really, and to his family. And a legacy that is worth remembering.

• 49:11Pablo Torre?

  And yet, before we let you go here, there is one thing we did not prepare you for, but you happened to allude to it earlier. And there is one more member of Grant and Celine's family that I think you and also the rest of the United States should become reacquainted with.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Well, this little guy who's sitting next to me, do you want to come and say hi? So this is Zizou. And you can see what he's wearing.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  If you can see on the camera. Oh, this way. Yeah, there we go.

• 49:45Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  This is Zizou. He's wearing the number 10. And Zizou is named after Zinedine Zidane. Zizou is his nickname. So soccer was a big thing in our house. You can see.

• 50:00Pablo Torre?

  The French national team kit that Zizou was wearing is, of course, a very particular reference to, yes, this legendary, I mean, all-time great,

• 50:11Pablo Torre?

  iconic player in Zidane, but also worn by an iconic dog, who I recall from Grant's Twitter feed, actually, an Instagram account. And what an honor for me to meet Zizou at the end here.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, and that was Grant's first big story, was the 90, like soccer story, was the 98 World Cup. So that story, that team, also was really important and formative in his, in his career.

• 50:43Pablo Torre?

  Well, it was France winning the World Cup in France. And it sounds like what I'm finding out at the end here is that while the editors of Sports Illustrated did not want to put that on the cover of their magazine, Grant found a way to commemorate this.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 51:00Pablo Torre?

  With your dog.

• 51:02Speaker 04

  With our dog, who lives on.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Zizou, what a legend.

• 51:06Pablo Torre?

  A legend.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  And noted listeners of the podcast will know that he made several contributions to the podcast through barking in the background of interviews with soccer luminaries, because that dog was vocal. I actually now kind of feel bad of the number of times that I edited him out of the podcast.

• 51:24Pablo Torre?

  What I'm also finding out here at the end, then, is that Chris Whittingham did, in fact, silence.

• 51:32Pablo Torre?

  Zizou Wall.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  I am the, the dark hand that, you know.

• 51:38Pablo Torre?

  A conspiracy.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Brought him down.

• 51:39Pablo Torre?

  A conspiracy.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  To hold down the dog.

• 51:42Pablo Torre?

  It rears its head, despite our best efforts. Chris Whittingham, in honor of, of, I guess, Mike Ditka, who had the cover of SI instead of Zizou. I hope at one point, you can break out a cigar of your own and remember Grant Wahl's coaching tree has resulted in, in something special.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  We all stand on the shoulders of Giants, and he was definitely one of them. And I miss him a lot, every day. And it was, it was nice to talk about him. Thank you, Pablo.

• 52:08Pablo Torre?

  Thanks for doing it.

• 52:19Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Studio engineering by RD Systems. Sound design by Andrew Bersick. Digital strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern. Theme song, as always, by John Bravo.

• 52:41Pablo Torre?

  And we'll talk to you next time.

• 52:53Speaker 00

  When your workday is constantly disrupted, your workflow isn't flowing. It's come to a grinding halt. You don't need an assistant, you need superpowers. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is built for how you actually work. No new tabs, no switching apps, no losing your place. Go handles busy work like finding documents or summarizing email threads, so you can focus on the work only you can do. Try Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.