Bieber Joins World Cup Final Halftime Show
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- Justin Bieber joins Madonna, Shakira, and BTS as headliners of FIFA's first-ever World Cup final halftime show, announced Wednesday.
- The 11-minute performance, curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin, will take place during the July 19 final outside New York.
- Afrobeats star Burna Boy, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the PS22 Chorus — an elementary school choir from Staten Island — will also perform, with Coldplay joining the chorus.
- The show supports the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is raising $100 million to expand children's access to education and soccer.
- Burna Boy co-leads the official World Cup song "Dai Dai" with Shakira, a multilingual Afrobeats-Latin track name-dropping Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, and more.
- The Muppets from "Sesame Street", including Kermit and Miss Piggy, will also feature in the performance.
- Unlike the Super Bowl's famed halftime tradition, soccer's marquee events like the Champions League final typically feature a prematch concert instead — making this a first for a World Cup final.
Why it matters: FIFA is borrowing the Super Bowl's entertainment playbook — staging the first-ever World Cup final halftime show — to elevate the tournament's cultural footprint beyond soccer. The $100 million Global Citizen Education Fund tie-in gives the spectacle a philanthropic justification, while Burna Boy's dual role as both halftime performer and official-song artist signals FIFA's push for genuine global representation rather than Western pop dominance.
