“I like a lot of them artists, but I thought it was crap.”
Finally, Wayne Rooney found a way to stick the boot in at a World Cup, in a way that didn’t result in national outrage. And while his clattering challenge on Fifa’s Super Bowl half-time show would later be eclipsed by the brutality of Enzo Fernandez’s needless assault on Pau Cubarsi – which sent the latter into a frightening cartwheel, and the former for an early bath – Rooney’s takedown was a much more welcome among football fans.
In many ways, the show had been a perfect end to the tournament – in the sense that this 48-team World Cup had also been a bloated, over-long affair packed with filler content, and which left many exhausted long before this underwhelming finale. It also showed just how little the Fifa money-machine actually believes in its own product.
We bring you love
For years, the world’s football governing autocracy has insisted it does not need to take a proactive stance on things like racism, homophobia, human slavery, or genocide, because Football Unites the World™. The love of the sport can bring us all together – except that quite clearly, Fifa thought it needed something bigger and shinier to retain the fickle attention span of its host nation (or more specifically, its geriatric president). It needed to jingle the keys, showcase some trinkets, pull in some court jesters that Donald Trump could laugh at or inevitably turn to Truth Social to disparage at length.
And just look at all the celebrities it managed to rope in. Fifa’s half-time agenda kicked off with (an allegedly pre-recorded) US representative Madonna mimed something indistinct, flanked by dancers in the bowels of the New York-New Jersey Stadium. Leaping onto the back of an ATV, she was driven to the pitch by Brazilian World Cup winners Ronaldo and Ronaldinho – both excelling as actors, conveying the genuine fear and confusion you would have if Madonna carjacked you – before a conspicuous change of camera-angle patched what many people have alleged was not a live performance into the rest of the show.
Jason Sudekis as Ted Lasso regrettably then appeared to cue up another act – reinforcing the stereotype alluded to by his own show, that the only way you can get someone from the US to engage with culture outside their borders is to somehow cram a positive cool American dude into the equation, yeah, wow, crazy, woo. The artist he teed up was Canada’s Justin Bieber; present to show how well his plugs are growing in, before bleating his was through an immediately forgettable guitar ballad of some kind.
Representing Mexico was… well, actually there were no acts representing Mexico. I can only assume the thinking there was “Eh, we have a Colombian, close enough.” Shakira performed, as she seems obliged to at every World Cup, once again attracted by a tax-free gift into a Swiss bank account her love of football. Meanwhile, a Venezuelan musician named Dudamel (who a quick Google confirmed was not, in fact, the guy who used to try and eat the Smurfs) conducted the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, and Iranian violinist Bijan Mortazavi, to playfully hint at the places the US has attempted regime change in befor (and during) this World Cup. New York Philarmonic were also part of this segment – so Zohran Mamdani should probably be vigilant in the coming days.
Apparently BTS are K-pop phenoms, and there optimistic booking here seems to have anticipated the Republic not being humiliated in the first round by South Africa. This may have contributed to the somewhat half-hearted display from the lads – who looked as though they could have used a hydration break mid-way through their gruelling three-minute set.
Then the quintessential US bombast of the show concluded with… Coldplay? Unfortunately they were supposedly in there somewhere too (though surrounded by assorted Muppets and children, they were hard to pick out) – debuting a big song about peace and love and stuff at a tournament where referees have been deported, fans have had the threat of ICE hanging over them, and the trophy ceremony was later presided over by a blood-soaked warmonger. Here, the band – who have often touted miscellaneous liberal causes from their platform – confirmed they really are the perfect representatives for England, by immediately capitulating the moment their ‘stand’ became inconvenient a la Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson, Declan Rice and so on. Wow, by taking Gianni Infantino’s money, to lend lending your star power to a World Cup built to glorify the modern version of Mussolini’s Italy, you sure stuck it to the man. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
It’s not really clear which of this gaggle of sub-par performers were the “a lot of them artists” that Wayne Rooney said he normally likes. But the fact that even for someone undiscerning enough to publicly hint at liking Coldplay to still be underwhelmed by this concert is probably the most damning review of any since issued by the media. That is not to say that there weren’t plenty of scalding takes.
Time’s Judy Berman probably had the pick, suggesting the scattershot booking of performers led to an “overstuffed” card, while adding it lacked memorable highlights. Berman then completed her evisceration by comparing the “nonspecific, studiously apolitical agenda of uplift” of the show to Bad Bunny’s celebrated, politically charged performance at the Super Bowl LX half-time show. And while the top results on search engines remain USA Today’s gawking ‘World Cup final stuns with historic halftime show, A-list celebs’ headline, even their reporter Melissa Ruggieri was willing to risk the criticism that too many artists had been packed into too brief a slot.
Ultimately, the show didn’t impress fans of the musical acts who appeared. It bored the American sensibilities it seemed patronisingly geared toward. And considering Trump usually is very forthcoming with comments relating to Super Bowl shows, his radio silence on this one suggests it didn’t exactly resonate with him either – possibly due to the lack of Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes. (Assuming he actually saw the show at all, and wasn’t in the midst of a half-time diaper-change.)
Looking ahead
So, what was all for?
There is, of course, the possibility that this was the creation of Fifa’s own deranged enclave. The result of the fact that, due to the organisation’s abject lack of democratic structure, it has no ability to genuinely connect with human beings. This is what it genuinely thought you would like – why aren’t you happy?
There is a less enjoyable scenario, though, where actually this was part of the parasites atop Fifa to reimagine soccer as sports entertainment – an product without real jeopardy, where the laws of the game can be inexhaustibly re-written according to individual narratives that fit cosily within mainstream ideology. Ensuring US striker Balogun could play on in spite of a red card ban for a dangerous tackle was one element of this. Breaking down the slow flow of the sport into four chunks more easily decided by moments of immediate brilliance – with ‘quarterback’ players providing ‘clutch moments’ and ‘Hail Mary’ plays – was another.
Football – more perhaps than any other sport – places collective endeavour and community at the heart of its success. In the final on Sunday, that remained evident – Spain working together as a unit to dethrone Argentina’s cult of personality, determined to drive Lionel Messi even further toward marketable status as ‘the GOAT’. Spain stood united, and kept their heads, before a player often derided for his lack of finishing skill scored the winning goal. Argentina gradually went to pieces as the game progressed, realising that the ‘cheat-code’ of Messi was not simply going to deliver the game to them – leading to outbreaks of petty violence that hastened the team’s demise.
This is what people love about the game – and what has made it the global sport of choice. It is also something which terrifies the global elite. As much as they have tried to capitalise on this sport, to render it alien from its origins, the core of working class solidarity runs through it – and this World Cup, more than anything, has been about trying to finally dislodge that. Coverage and ‘discourse’ have centred on a golden boot race between several ‘elite’ players, while ignoring the team displays that make those impressive stats possible. At various points, France, Argentina, even England have been discussed as favourites – or rather, Mbappé, Messi, Kane and Bellingham have – but all failed because they remained limited by the performance of key individuals, rather than collective strength.
There is a pleasing hint of desperation to Fifa’s half-time extravaganza on this basis, of faking it having never quite made it. Despite every intervention, the organisation is yet to ruin the sport’s collective soul. But that may not be forever. The question is what people who profess to love football – in more than the performative sense – intend to do now.
Will the world continue to re-mortgage their houses every four years for the next, somehow more bloated and farcical, dog and pony show? Will we continue to fund Johnny Baby’s private jet? Will we continue to tolerate our national associations, 200 of which have already backed the president’s bid for a third term? Will we simply continue to go through the motions and follow this circus by plane across three continents in 2030, or to the half-built vanity project stadiums of Saudi Arabia in 2034, as the world literally burns around us?
Maybe. But after a generationally bad tournament, where the governing body’s global credibility has never been worn thinner, maybe the casual admission that, actually, this was crap, can be the start of something more important.
