Wayne Rooney Critiques World Cup Final Half-Time Show
Wayne Rooney slams World Cup final half-time show: ‘I thought it was crap’
The World Cup final in New Jersey was supposed to showcase a new kind of spectacle. Instead, Wayne Rooney cut straight through the gloss.
As Spain and Argentina waited in the dressing rooms at MetLife Stadium, FIFA rolled out its first extended World Cup final half-time show – an 11‑minute blockbuster wedged into a break that eventually stretched beyond 27 minutes. Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber, Burna Boy, BTS, Muppets, Sesame Street characters – it was designed to be Super Bowl meets global football.
Rooney was having none of it.
Working pitchside as a BBC pundit 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.”
No soft landing. No diplomatic smile for the cameras. Just a blunt verdict from a man who has played in three World Cups and clearly wanted the football back.
“It just didn’t get me going and I wanted the football to come back on,” he added. “I like Burna Boy, I like Bieber, I like Shakira, but that was too flat.”
Richards, who had been more taken by the show – picking out Shakira and Nigerian star Burna Boy as his standout moments – laughed off Rooney’s assessment and branded his former England team‑mate “miserable” on air. Logan, picking up on the tone and the timing, quipped: “I’ll tell you what else you get on the BBC: honest reviews.”
Honest was the word. On a night when FIFA wanted fireworks, Rooney lit the fuse in the studio instead.
FIFA’s big swing
This was no hastily thrown together interval act. FIFA president Gianni Infantino had unveiled the concept back in March of last year, presenting it as a landmark moment for the global game. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin curated the show, with the idea of stitching together a world‑spanning line‑up for a truly global audience.
On the pitch, Madonna made her entrance in suitably theatrical fashion, driven in by Brazil legends Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. South Korean giants BTS added the K‑pop surge. Shakira, a veteran of World Cup stages, delivered her segment. Justin Bieber and Burna Boy brought pop and Afrobeats. Around them, characters from the Muppets and Sesame Street roamed the turf, turning the World Cup final into a surreal collision of children’s television, pop culture and elite sport.
The interval, traditionally a 15‑minute reset for players and coaches, ballooned to more than 27 minutes to accommodate the production. For fans used to the rhythm of a football match, the stretch felt long. For FIFA, it was a deliberate step into the American model, where half-time is a show, not a pause.
In the United States, this is familiar territory. The NFL’s Super Bowl halftime show has become as big a talking point as the game itself, with headliners, surprise guests and viral moments baked into the event. FIFA clearly wanted a slice of that.
The reaction from the old guard of punditry was more measured than Rooney’s, but not glowing. Speaking on ITV, Roy Keane called it “a bit of an anti-climax” before adding, with a wry grin, “but I think the people in the stadium probably enjoyed it more than us. But it’s always nice to see Shakira.”
Keane’s line summed up the mood: admiration for the star power, less enthusiasm for the interruption.
Glitz with a cause
Behind the noise sat a serious purpose. FIFA staged the half-time show in support of 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. The organisation has framed the spectacle as a way to harness entertainment for social impact, using the biggest match in football to push a global message.
The pageantry started long before the interval. The closing ceremony delivered its own red-carpet roll call: Hollywood actor Tom Cruise, pop star Robbie Williams and US singer Jennifer Hudson all featured in the build-up. On the performance side, Nicole Scherzinger, Italian singer-songwriter Laura Pausini and streamer IShowSpeed took to the stage before kick-off, alongside Post Malone and rapper Swae Lee.
By the time the players walked out, the World Cup final already felt like a hybrid event – part football, part concert, part television spectacular.
Rooney’s response cut through that hybrid. For traditionalists, the game comes first. The longer the delay, the greater the risk of breaking the intensity of a final. That tension – between the purity of the sport and the pull of global entertainment – was laid bare in one blunt sentence: “I thought it was crap.”
FIFA will argue the numbers, the reach, the cause and the show itself justify the experiment. The question now is whether this was a one-off statement or the new normal for the biggest match in football.
