Wayne Rooney Calls World Cup Half-Time Show 'Crap'
Wayne Rooney has never been one to dress a verdict in soft language. On the biggest night in world football, he didn’t start.
As Spain and Argentina waited in the dressing rooms at MetLife Stadium, the first World Cup final half-time show rolled into an 11‑minute pop spectacle. FIFA had stretched the interval to accommodate a cast list that read like a festival poster: Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber, Burna Boy, BTS and more.
The traditional 15-minute break ballooned to more than 27 minutes. The football stopped. The show started. Rooney wanted none of it.
Working 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 performance. His response cut straight through the gloss.
“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.”
The camera panned, the studio laughed, but Rooney didn’t blink. Richards, who had picked out Colombian star Shakira and Nigerian singer Burna Boy as his standout moments, fired back by calling his former Manchester City and England rival “miserable” for the blunt assessment.
Logan, seizing the moment after a BBC promo had just aired, added with a grin: “I’ll tell you what else you get on the BBC: honest reviews.”
FIFA had never hidden the scale of its ambition. President Gianni Infantino announced plans for the show in March last year, with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin curating the spectacle. This was billed as football’s answer to the Super Bowl – a full-throttle, made-for-TV extravaganza designed to plant the World Cup final even deeper into the global entertainment calendar.
On the pitch, the choreography was relentless. Madonna was driven out in style by Brazil greats Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. South Korean giants BTS performed. Characters from the Muppets and Sesame Street appeared, blurring the line between children’s television and a global sporting event.
Inside the stadium, the noise and colour were impossible to ignore. At home, not everyone was buying it.
Over on ITV, Roy Keane delivered his own typically sharp take. “It was a bit of an anti-climax,” he said, before softening the blow with a nod to one of the headliners. “But I think the people in the stadium probably enjoyed it more than us. But it’s always nice to see Shakira.”
The show was not just about fireworks and famous faces. FIFA staged it 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. For the governing body, this was a statement: football as entertainment, philanthropy and global culture all rolled into one extended interval.
The build-up to kick-off had already hinted at where the night was heading. The closing ceremony drew Hollywood and pop royalty to New Jersey. Tom Cruise appeared. Robbie Williams and Jennifer Hudson took their turns in the spotlight. On the performance list were Nicole Scherzinger, Italian singer-songwriter Laura Pausini, streamer IShowSpeed, Post Malone and rapper Swae Lee.
By the time the players finally re-emerged for the second half, the World Cup final had morphed into something closer to a prime-time variety show framed by 90 minutes of football.
Rooney’s reaction cut against that vision. For him, and for many traditionalists watching at home, the extended break broke the rhythm of the match and the essence of the occasion. The World Cup final, in their eyes, is supposed to be the show.
FIFA, though, has planted its flag. The question now is whether this was a one-off experiment – or the new template for football’s biggest night.
