Welcome To America: President Of FIFA Announced The 2026 World Cup Will Feature A Super Bowl Style Halftime Show For The First Time Ever

Yahoo! - Gianni Infantino has confirmed that the 2026 World Cup final will feature a half-time show.

The 54-year-old football administrator is the president of FIFA and noted that when the tournament arrives in the New Jersey in the USA next year, it will feature a performance at the halfway point, much like the Super Bowl.

He wrote on Instagram: "I can confirm the first ever half-time show at a FIFA World Cup final in New York New Jersey, in association with Global Citizen. This will be a historic moment for the FIFA World Cup and a show befitting the biggest sporting event in the world.

"We also spoke about how FIFA will take over Times Square for the final weekend of the FIFA World Cup in 2026, during both the bronze final match and final. These will be two incredible matches, featuring some of the best players in the world, and what better way to celebrate them than in the historic Times Square in New York City."

If I'm to take Kaveh Solhekol of Sky Sports News' word on this, his British accent makes me inclined to do, the old heads of soccer won't like this at all. I imagine that has sometime to do halftime of soccer games traditionally being no more than 15 minutes long. It takes much longer than that for Kendrick Lamar to call Drake a pedophile. But as an American who only watches soccer casually, and has been watching Super Bowl halftime performances his entire life, this seems like the most common sense thing in the world to me. No event has more pomp and circumstance than the World Cup. The whole thing is a spectacle from start to finish. And in 2026, the World Cup will be in the United States. What better way for America, who is FINALLY getting the chance to share our culture with the world on an international stage, than by holding a multi-million dollar commercially sponsored concert during halftime of the most important soccer game in the world.

Whichever artist (or artists) get the nod for this, you gotta think it's a massive deal for them. This has to be the biggest international audience an artist has ever performed for. In the history of time. This year's Super Bowl was the most watched Super Bowl of all-time with 123.7 million viewers domestically, and 62.5 million internationally. And that didn't even come close to touching the 2022 World Cup Final, which had 571 million.

There's no word yet on who will be performing during halftime at MetLife Stadium in 2026. All we know is that President of FIFA Gianni Infantino said Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin will be helping finalize the list.

NY Times - The final in 2026 will take place at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey with Infantino revealing that Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin and the band’s manager Phil Harvey will help to finalise the “list of artists” who will perform.

If I'm Chris Martin of Coldplay, I might consider pulling a Gregg Popovich, and coming to the conclusion after conducting an extensive search that Coldplay is actually best fit for the role. If you have an opportunity to perform in front of nearly 600 million people, you gotta grab that opportunity by the balls. A television audience more than double the size of the Super Bowl might even be big enough that Taylor Swift wouldn't think it's beneath her. Shakira always plays with an international audience. Part of me thinks this thing has Bad Bunny's name written all over it. Or of course, the World Cup could do the funniest thing ever, and a full year after the joke has already been beaten into the ground, bring back Kendrick Lamar to once again... call Drake a pedophile. 

According to one shady off-shore betting site who I assume has zero inside information whatsoever, the front runners in order are Coldplay, Beyonce, Rihanna, Shakira, Bad Bunny, The Chainsmokers, U2, and Ed Sheehan.

I'm actually kind of excited to see who they pick now. I would guess they end up going with multiple big time names sharing a stage at once. This a big moment. Not so much for me. Or for America. But for the world. For the beautiful game. It'll most watched halftime show in the history of the world. Apparently 650 million people watched the Apollo 11 moon landing worldwide, so it won't quite the most watched television broadcast ever. But it'll be up there.