FIFA World Cup final halftime show: Grading the booked performers as Madonna, Shakira and BTS to headline

Soccer is following football with a loaded halftime show at this summer's World Cup final, and we take a deep dive into trying to make sense of it all and grading the booked performers

Madonna, Shakira and BTS will headline the first halftime show in the 96-year history of the World Cup final. The tournament, with matches in the USA, Canada and Mexico, concludes at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium, just outside of New York City, on July 19.

After the first 45 minutes of the game has been played, the field in East Rutherford will be transformed into a venue fit to host three of pop music's biggest names in a Super Bowl-style performance curated by Chris Martin. The lead singer of Coldplay announced the trio with the aid of Sesame Street's Elmo and Cookie Monster as well as Kermit the Frog, Animal and Miss Piggy, whose absence from the stage will go down as the worst miss at the World Cup since Diana Ross at the 1994 Opening Ceremony.

In the absence of the world's most glamorous porcine, three of pop's biggest names will take to the field for an event that is not without its contention. While pre-match performances at events such as the Champions League are now commonplace, this is the first time that a halftime show has been placed in the middle of such a high-profile football match. The laws of the game expressly limit the break between halves to 15 minutes. The halftime show in last summer's Club World Cup final between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain ran to 24 minutes.

Madonna is arguably the biggest name on the list of acts. The "Queen of Pop" is the biggest selling female artist in history and her string of hits have reflected the hedonistic side of host city New York. Shakira has been closely associated with soccer since her anthem for the 2010 World Cup, "Waka Waka," and she is due to release "Dai Dai" with Nigerian rapper Burna Boy on Thursday. South Korea's BTS are the most successful K-pop band in history and are returning to the global stage after a three-year hiatus to undertake military service.

Madonna, Shakira and BTS will co-headline the first-ever FIFA World Cup™ Final Halftime Show at the New York New Jersey Stadium on July 19.   Curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin and produced by Global Citizen, the show will raise funds for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund,… pic.twitter.com/H2c2mc9q0b

— Coldplay (@coldplay) May 14, 2026

The halftime show is raising money for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is aiming to raise $100 million. Prior to that, the World Cup will also host opening ceremonies in each of the three host nations. Mexico's first game will be preceded by artists that include J Balvin, Danny Ocean and Tyla. Alanis Morissette and Michael Buble will perform in Canada, while Los Angeles' SoFi Stadium will welcome the likes of Katy Perry, Future, Anitta and LISA.

Grading the halftime show booking

Shall we get the obvious out of the way first and foremost? Obviously, the World Cup final does not need a halftime show. Football does not need to rabidly stick to its nearly century-old tradition, but if you want to change its showpiece game, you should ask yourself why you are doing it. Has there been a clamor among supporters for a bit more razzmataz? Not really. Can FIFA do this better than anyone else? Probably not.

The names on the lineup are good gets. They're all big enough to get booked for the other halftime show. Indeed, two-thirds of them have played it. It's just that until you see any evidence to the contrary, you have to question whether any spectacle can match what has been a run of Super Bowl performances so exceptional as to make almost bearable the gridiron played either side of it. Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny: these are artists at the top of their game and the top of the charts, the sort who bend the cultural conversation around their every verse.

It has been a while since Madonna has done that. Probably not since "Confessions on a Dance Floor," so perhaps that's why she has returned to that classic album with the quite excellent "I Feel So Free" preceding the launch of "Confessions II" barely a fortnight before the World Cup final. Stick that one in the set list, chuck in "Vogue," "Hung Up," "Intro The Groove, "Like a Prayer," of course, and ... aaaah, yeah. Well, you're well over your 15 minutes there, and you've still got two-thirds of your lineup to go. 

You can feel those muscles tightening up as Rodri/Kylian Mbappe/Harry Kane wait and wait and wait for game 70 or so of this season, for which they didn't get much of a preseason anyway. This isn't American football. The players aren't hovering around for several hours waiting for things to happen. It's the strength and conditioning coaches one pities at a time like this.

They won't even get to watch some really good pop songs. "Dynamite" might be the most audaciously cheesy and relentlessly brilliant slice of three and a half minutes in BTS' career. There's a lot of competition there. "Waka Waka" will go off, but Shakira, I have one request. Can we squeeze in "Zoo" somehow?  Seriously "Zootopia 2," what a film. I didn't think they had the minerals to follow that first one. Top, top, top.

Oh, look, I've inadvertently talked myself into this whole thing. And look, when they announced who was organizing, it was impossible not to fear the worst. Until the referee gets the second half underway, you'll always fear the worst, but no Coldplay, doesn't sound half bad.

Then again, to quote my personal heroes Statler and Waldorf, this doesn't sound half good either. It's a bad idea executed fairly well. If we must have a halftime show, this looks like it should be a perfectly reasonable iteration on the format, even if it really wants for a star of the moment, a Sabrina Carpenter or Harry Styles. Then again, why exactly must we have this?

Grade: C