Conspiracy Theories Surrounding Grant Wahl's Death

I would never have heard about Grant Wahl if it wasn't for the fact that he died suddenly and unexpectedly during the Netherlands against Argentina match that he was reporting on from Qatar.

It's not normal for a healthy 48 year old man to suddenly keel over and die, but that's what Mr Wahl did, and a conspiracy theory has quickly been concocted to explain what happened. The story currently doing the rounds in the mainstream media is that someone decided to kill Mr Wahl due to his support of the LGBTQ+ community.

But Mr Wahl was also an outspoken supporter of the vaccine effort. He was married to no lesser person than Dr. Céline Gounder who served on the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board. We also know from Mr Wahl's Twitter posts that he was fully vaccinated. He was also most likely fully boosted.

It should also be noted that Mr Wahl experienced chest pains during the days preceding his death, something that's commonly associated with Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.

Some people have concluded from this that Mr Wahl's death has more to do with the vaccine than Qatari's dislike of the rainbow flag. The official conspiracy theory is based on the assumption that Qatari hate the LGBTQ+ community so much that they will kill people who openly support this movement. The unofficial conspiracy theory is based on the assumption that vaccines are causing excess deaths.

We will probably never know the truth. But it's interesting to note that conspiracy theories exist both in the mainstream and in fringe communities. When unexpected things happen, people leap to conclusions, and being mainstream doesn't significantly moderate this urge.

Pride flag

By Gilbert Baker (Vector graphics by Fibonacci) - SVG based on this image, Public Domain, Link