Madonna, Shakira and BTS will headline the first half-time show ever staged at a World Cup final, with the performance set for the match in New Jersey on 19 July. The understands the show will last 11 minutes.
The booking brings together a 67-year-old pop icon, a 49-year-old global hitmaker and the seven members of BTS, the best-selling music act in South Korean history. BTS have sold more than 45 million albums and will be in the middle of an 85-date world tour when they take the stage.
The lineup also links two artists with deep World Cup history. Shakira released Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) for the 2010 tournament in South Africa, and she is releasing her official World Cup song Dai Dai on Thursday. Dai Dai is an Italian phrase meaning “let’s go” or “come on,” and the track also features Nigerian singer Burna Boy.
Madonna arrives with her own blend of pop spectacle and timing. She is the best-selling female music artist of all time and is preparing to release her 15th album, Confessions II, on 3 July. In April, she made a surprise guest appearance during Sabrina Carpenter’s headline set at the Coachella music festival for a duet of Vogue and Like A Prayer.
The show has been curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin and will raise money for the Fifa Global Citizen Education Fund, an initiative working to raise $100m (£73m) for children worldwide. In March, Fifa president Gianni Infantino said the performance “will be a historic moment for the Fifa World Cup, befitting the biggest sporting event in the world.”
That framing fits what is coming. Pre-match performances have become routine at major finals such as the Champions League, but this is being presented as the first half-time show at a World Cup final, a shift that turns the sport’s biggest night into something closer to a global broadcast spectacle. It also comes as the World Cup is being co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, placing the final squarely in the market where such shows are most familiar.
The one friction point is scale: 11 minutes leaves little room for anything but precision, and the demand on three acts with very different styles will be to make the moment feel singular rather than stitched together. For Madonna, Shakira and BTS, the question is not whether the audience will be large. It is whether a show this short can deliver the kind of event Fifa is promising — and the answer appears to be yes, because the final is getting a half-time show for the first time, and it is getting it with three acts built for the world stage.
