Musical headliners Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber, BTS and Coldplay were joined by Brazilian football icons and Ted Lasso actors in a spectacular first-ever Fifa World Cup final half-time show on Sunday.
The star-packed, Super Bowl-style extravaganza – a first for football’s showpiece event – also featured a tribute to football icon Pelé and a rendition of “Seven Nation Army” led by Gustavo Dudamel and featuring musicians from the US, Venezuela and Iran.
Sesame Street and The Muppets characters joined Coldplay and a New York school choir to close a performance designed to raise money for the Fifa Global Citizen Education Fund, which promotes access to sport for underprivileged children.
The 12-minute performance meant the total half-time break in the match between Spain and Argentina lasted 27 minutes.
Organisers had billed the half-time show as “the single largest gathering of artists united for a cause since Live Aid” and “the most-watched 11 minutes of broadcast music performance in history”.
Fifa chief Gianni Infantino predicted “a couple of billion” people would tune in.
The extended interruption to football’s most important game had drawn some criticism over the potential effect on players’ performance.
While highly unusual for football, the show was slightly shorter than most recent Super Bowl half-time performances, which typically run around 13–14 minutes.
The crowd erupted with a roar as the show began with Madonna being transported through tunnels beneath the MetLife Stadium on a dune buggy driven by Brazilian football legends Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.
Madonna’s performance of “Music” led to an orchestra featuring the New York Philharmonic, Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and Iranian violinist Bijan Mortazavi performing the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” – a rock hit that has become a global US football stadium staple.
Footage of the Norway fans’ “Viking row” celebration from this tournament led into K-pop sensation BTS performing their smash hit “Dynamite,” rewritten with football-specific lyrics, before Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis and his “Coach Beard” sidekick Brendan Hunt made a surprise appearance.
They introduced Canadian pop star Bieber, who performed an emotional, World Cup-tailored version of “Everything Hallelujah”, before Shakira and Nigerian singer Burna Boy ramped the energy back up with this World Cup anthem, “Dai Dai”, accompanied by Ugandan dancers.
Giant screens showed footage of Brazil’s late football icon Pelé from 1977, addressing the crowd at the old Giants Stadium on the same New Jersey site following his final professional match. Pelé died in 2022, months after the last World Cup.
PS22 Chorus, a New York school choir that has gone viral globally with YouTube covers of popular hits, closed the show with Coldplay – whose frontman, Chris Martin, curated the entire performance – and characters from The Muppets and Sesame Street.
The Fifa Global Citizen Education Fund was described by organisers as the “driving force” behind the half-time show. It disburses cash to community groups that provide education and sport to underprivileged children in countries including Ghana, South Africa, France and the United Kingdom.
The fund aims to raise US$100 million (HK$784 million). It had surpassed US$60 million before the show, including a US$1 donation from every World Cup ticket sold, plus contributions from corporations, nation-states and private donors. Fifa has already announced 58 groups that will receive grants, reaching 400,000 children worldwide.
Even before the match, a parade of stars took the microphone to whip up the crowd.
Post Malone headlined a closing ceremony and Tom Cruise delivered a monologue about football unifying the world – but was largely drowned out in the stadium by singing fans. Robbie Williams, Nicole Scherzinger and Jennifer Hudson were among other A-list performers.
