Wayne Rooney Critiques World Cup Final Half-Time Show
The World Cup final in New Jersey was supposed to showcase a new kind of football spectacle. Instead, Wayne Rooney cut straight through the fireworks.
As Spain and Argentina waited in the dressing rooms at the MetLife Stadium, FIFA stretched the traditional 15‑minute interval into a 27‑minute blockbuster, an 11‑minute half-time show packed with global superstars. Madonna. Shakira. Justin Bieber. Burna Boy. BTS. A cast list built for a Super Bowl.
Rooney wasn’t buying it.
Working pitchside for the BBC alongside Joe Hart and Micah Richards, the former England captain was asked by presenter Gabby Logan for his highlight of the show. He didn’t bother dressing it up.
“I’ll be honest, mine was when it finished,” the 40‑year‑old said. “I like a lot of them artists but I thought it was crap.
“It just didn’t get me going and I wanted the football to come back on. I like Burna Boy, I like Bieber, I like Shakira, but that was too flat.”
No soft landing. No polite fence‑sitting. Just a blunt verdict from a man who spent his career living for the 45 minutes either side of the break, not the glitz in between.
Richards, ever the foil, tried to lighten the mood, labelling his former Manchester City and England team‑mate “miserable” as he picked out Shakira and Nigerian star Burna Boy as his standout acts. Logan, having just fronted an advert for the BBC, leaned into the moment: “I’ll tell you what else you get on the BBC: honest reviews.”
FIFA had thrown its weight behind this. President Gianni Infantino announced the plans back in March last year, with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin curating the show. The idea was clear: turn the World Cup final into a full entertainment event, not just a match.
On paper, it sounded unmissable. Madonna arrived on the pitch in a vehicle chauffeured by Brazilian legends Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. South Korean giants BTS performed. Characters from the Muppets and Sesame Street appeared. It was colour, nostalgia, and pop culture colliding on the game’s biggest stage.
But for some watching at home, the extended interval felt less like a treat and more like an interruption. The rhythm of a final is fragile. Stretch it too far, and you risk snapping the tension that football naturally builds.
Across town on ITV, Roy Keane struck a slightly softer, if still underwhelmed, tone. “It was a bit of an anti-climax,” he said, before conceding: “but I think the people in the stadium probably enjoyed it more than us. But it’s always nice to see Shakira.”
If the spectacle split opinion, its purpose was unambiguous. The half-time show supported the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, an initiative aiming to raise 100 million US dollars to expand access to education and football for children around the world. Big stars, big stage, big cause.
The glamour wasn’t confined to half-time. Before kick-off, the closing ceremony rolled out another parade of names. Tom Cruise, Robbie Williams and Jennifer Hudson all featured. On the performance front, Nicole Scherzinger, Italian singer-songwriter Laura Pausini and streamer IShowSpeed took their turns, joined by Post Malone and rapper Swae Lee.
For FIFA, this was the future: a final as a full-scale entertainment package, closer to the NFL’s Super Bowl than the traditional, tight, 15‑minute breather that football has known for generations.
For Rooney, it was something else entirely. A distraction. A flat note in a night that should belong to the players, not the playlist.
The show ended. The cameras swung back to the pitch. And for the old-school football men in the gantry, the real event finally resumed.
