The Missing Ambassador of the World Cup
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Who was Grant Wahl and what was his impact on soccer journalism?
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. If the world's soccer fans can't stand Seb 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. Right after this ad.
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What motivated Grant Wahl to run for FIFA president?
Mmm. You good? Yeah, man. How are you doing? Yeah, great. I was going to say, your schedule is... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All over the place right now. Yeah. Wait, so what's your schedule from here? So we're... So at CBS, we're just doing stuff all day. Right. I went to... As a fan, I bought a ticket and got... I went to Scotland, Haiti, which is awesome. Yeah, watching from home, that looked like... Amazing. I was standing in line for a beer, and there was all these people who just, like, randomly started hugging for no reason. Because if Haiti hadn't made it since 1974 and they're 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. One of the things, Chris Whittingham, thank you for being here, by the way. Yeah, no problem. One of the things about the World Cup that always hits me once it gets going is like 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 one of a kind. Yeah, you feel it in this city as well. Even on the subway over, they have 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 U.S. 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. I was doing my own historical review of the 94 World Cup. In the 80s, there was a house debate on Capitol Hill, about whether the U.S. 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. That it is this secret PSYOP that is here to plant in the minds of Americans to be anti-American. It's hilarious. 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. Yeah. Who I think about all of the time, but especially... during this time of year, during this World Cup, Grant Wall.
Mm-hmm.
And for people who don't know of Grant, who didn't know his work as a journalist, how would you summarize him? 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 were 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.
You're talking about, obviously, you know, Australia.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who was Grant Wahl and what was his impact on soccer journalism?
0:00–0:29
2
What motivated Grant Wahl to run for FIFA president?
0:29–4:53
3
What were the major controversies surrounding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar?
4:53–9:11
4
How did Grant Wahl cover human rights issues in Qatar?
9:11–14:00
5
What led to Grant Wahl's sudden collapse during the World Cup?
14:00–19:01
6
What were the conspiracy theories surrounding Grant Wahl's death?
19:01–22:20
7
What was the outcome of the investigation into Grant Wahl's death?
22:20–24:11
8
How is Grant Wahl remembered by his peers and family?
24:11–50:23
Speakers
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