FIFA’s halftime spectacle is football’s latest flirtation with show business

Half-time in football used to be a brief pause for breath, a drink and the usual complaints about refereeing. At the World Cup final in New Jersey, it will become a stage-managed event with a running time that could stretch to 25 minutes. That is awkward enough on its own, given that the International Football Association Board says players are entitled to a maximum 15-minute stoppage. Football, as ever, is discovering that once administrators start “innovating”, the laws of the game tend to become a suggestion.

FIFA is presenting the first World Cup halftime show as a landmark celebration at the intersection of sport, music and global impact. It will take place at MetLife Stadium on Sunday night, and broadcasters BBC and ITV are expected to show the full performance while the stadium set is assembled and removed. Coldplay’s Chris Martin has curated the show, Nigerian star Burna Boy will appear, and FIFA says the acts are not being paid; the event, it adds, will raise money for an education fund.

The idea is not arriving out of nowhere. Last year’s Club World Cup final, also organised by FIFA and also in New Jersey, featured a 24-minute half-time with live music from Coldplay, J Balvin, Doja Cat and Tems. Betty Glover, who has covered the World Cup across the United States over the past month, says there is a push to get more Americans invested in football and that more people seem to be warming to it when they encounter it in person. That is the simple commercial logic behind all of this: make the occasion feel larger, and perhaps the audience follows.

James Massing of Live Nation, which is responsible for the World Cup final half-time show, argues that expectations around major sporting events have risen. Sport, he says, is competing with museums, theatres and cinemas, and music helps make a final feel like a final. He has worked on the Super Bowl and the Club World Cup final show, and points to The Killers’ performance before the Uefa Champions League final between Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain in May, when the atmosphere in the stadium peaked. On that reading, spectacle is not a distraction but a product feature.

Yet not everyone is eager to buy the package. British football content creator Ellis Platten says he is not a fan of the half-time show or of the hydration breaks introduced at this World Cup, which come 22 minutes into each half and have been used for advertisements on some US networks. He argues that the final does not need extra decoration and notes that stadium crowds are already restless by the end of half-time. His broader point is hard to dismiss: a global tournament does not automatically become better because it borrows the habits of American entertainment.

There is also the matter of player welfare, which tends to get mentioned only after the bright lights are installed. IFAB has previously rejected proposals to extend football half-times beyond 15 minutes, citing concerns about injury after prolonged inactivity. Platten suggests that such a long interruption would almost require substitutions simply to keep players ready. Massing insists there is no compromise on the integrity of the sport and says player welfare is fundamental when organising these shows. That is reassuring, in the way corporate assurances usually are.

The broader picture is a North American World Cup where celebrities have appeared at every turn, from delivering the match ball to waving to cameras on the big screen. Musical performances at sports events are hardly new — the Super Bowl has had one since 1967 — but in the UK and Europe the shift has been slower. The Champions League only added a musical performance 10 years ago, and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone started doing so three years ago. Glover says she cannot imagine the same formula taking hold in Spain, Portugal and Morocco at the next World Cup. Perhaps that is just as well. Football can survive without becoming a branch of the events industry. One suspects it might even prefer it.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com