Shakira, Madonna and BTS Are First World Cup Final Halftime Show
Shakira, Madonna and BTS will headline the first halftime show at a World Cup final, FIFA announced early Thursday morning, in a meshing of Latin, pop and Korean music that reflects the global community of soccer fans.
The World Cup final, which is scheduled for July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, is already a quadrennial spectacle that in 2022 drew more than 500 million live viewers. But the introduction of a musical performance could attract even more casual spectators.
The artists have wide catalogs to choose from for the anticipated performance. Madonna has won seven Grammy Awards and Shakira has won four, while BTS was the first K-pop group to receive a Grammy nomination.
Madonna headlined the Super Bowl halftime show in 2012, and Shakira shared the Super Bowl stage with Jennifer Lopez in 2020.
The artists for the World Cup halftime show were selected by Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, who shared the lineup in a video on social media that featured characters from Sesame Street and the Muppets. “It’s a chance to show how amazing all different kinds of humans are,” Martin explained to Elmo.
The World Cup begins next month and will take place across 16 cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada, with games airing in the United States on Fox and Telemundo. The halftime show will be produced by Global Citizen, a nonprofit organization that puts on large-scale musical concerts to spotlight charitable issues like hunger and poverty.
FIFA and Global Citizen conducted a trial run at MetLife Stadium last summer with a halftime show at the final of the FIFA Club World Cup, featuring the American rapper Doja Cat, the Nigerian singer Tems and the Colombian artist J Balvin. The performers sang from a stage that was woven into the stands.
In an interview last year ahead of the Club World Cup, Martin said, “This tournament is people from all over the globe, and the halftime show should ideally try and reflect that a bit.”
Martin recruited some of the biggest artists in the world to perform during the World Cup.
Shakira recently released the tournament’s official song, “Dai Dai,” which features the Afrobeats star Burna Boy. (She also performed in the opening ceremony of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.) Madonna announced that she is releasing a new album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II,” in July. And BTS reunited as a full band in March for the first time in nearly four years after all seven members completed mandatory service in the South Korean military.
This month, FIFA also announced the lineups for the opening ceremony ahead of the first game played in each of the three host countries. In the United States, the musicians who will perform before a June 12 matchup at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles include Katy Perry, Future, Anitta, Lisa, Rema and Tyla.
Major musical performances during sports events are not new to American fans. Super Bowl halftime shows, with stars like Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna, routinely draw more than 100 million broadcast viewers in America and drive conversations before and after the performance.
Devoted soccer fans, however, do not need extra festivities to generate excitement, and the introduction of a halftime show could bring a clash with purists.
“Generally, the perception is the 15-minute halftime is sacrosanct — you don’t mess with it,” said Sean Jacobs, a professor of international affairs at the New School in Manhattan. “The link between entertainment and sports, if you grew up in the United States, that’s what you’re used to, but you don’t have to convince people to love football in Africa, in Europe or in Asia or South America.”
