Justin Bieber will take part in the Times-linked 2026 World Cup half-time show on 19 July, joining Madonna, Shakira and BTS in the tournament’s first Super Bowl-style closing performance. The set will run for 11 minutes and is tied to a fundraising push for children worldwide.
“The FIFA World Cup brings the world together in a way nothing else can,” Bieber said about joining the half-time show. That line fits the scale of the booking: this is not a side-stage cameo, but a central part of the closing match presentation for the biggest tournament in the sport.
Chris Martin curates the set
The half-time show has been curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and the announced lineup also includes Burna Boy, Gustavo Dudamel, the PS22 Chorus featuring Coldplay, and the Sesame Street muppets. The structure is unusually tight for a live entertainment piece built around a football final: 11 minutes means the production has to move fast, keep transitions clean, and leave no room for dead air.
The fundraising link is just as important. The show supports the Fifa Global Citizen Education Fund, an initiative working to raise $100m for children worldwide. On the math alone, that puts the performance in the realm of a branded campaign, not a ceremonial add-on. One 11-minute slot is being used to carry both spectacle and fundraising pressure.
Host nations already gone
The tournament launched on 11 June with 48 teams across Mexico, Canada and the US, and all three host nations have already been eliminated. That leaves eight teams in the quarter finals as the event turns toward its closing stretch, with France meeting Morocco in Boston on Thursday, Spain and Belgium in Los Angeles on Friday, and Norway and England in Miami on Saturday.
The timing creates a sharp contrast: the World Cup is adding a headline entertainment event even as the host countries are out. Shakira and Burna Boy, who opened the tournament across the three North America host nations, are returning for the closing show, which makes the half-time slot feel less like a random add-on and more like a bookend for the monthlong event.
Bieber’s return also gives the booking extra weight. He came back to the stage in the spring with a Coachella festival set in California after cancelling his Justice world tour following health issues, so the 19 July appearance extends that return to a much larger audience. For a performer who had stepped away, this is a cleaner signal than another one-off appearance: the show is a major live platform, and it arrives with the tournament moving into its final matches.
The one detail still left hanging is the running order. How the first-ever half-time show will be staged, and which performer appears first, has not been explained, so the real watchpoint is whether the production can turn an 11-minute window into a coherent broadcast rather than a crowded medley.
