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Why Justin Bieber’s FIFA World Cup halftime show is facing online backlash
The pop star's acoustic halftime performance at the FIFA World Cup final divided fans, with many saying the emotional ballad drained the match’s energy
- PUBLISHED: Mon 20 Jul 2026, 11:47 AM UPDATED: Mon 20 Jul 2026, 11:49 AM
Justin Bieber’s halftime song at the FIFA World Cup final has kicked off just as much drama as the football on the pitch.
In a first-of-its-kind Super Bowl-style show at MetLife Stadium, FIFA rolled out a star-studded lineup - Shakira, Madonna, BTS, Burna Boy and Justin Bieber among them - to fill the break between Spain and Argentina’s nail-biting clash. Expectations from Bieber were, perhaps, of sparking a stadium-shaking singalong pulled from his arsenal of global hits.
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Instead, the Canadian singer delivered a stripped-down, acoustic performance of his slow, introspective track ‘Everything Hallelujah’, turning the world’s buzziest football stage into something closer to an intimate arena show. The mood inside the stadium and online shifted instantly. While some praised the vocals, many fans complained the ballad “killed the energy” of the final, arguing that a tense, goalless first half needed adrenaline, not introspection.
Viewers questioned why he’d skip crowd-pleasers in favour of a lesser-known, mellow track, with memes quickly branding it “the wrong song at the wrong time”, The contrast with Shakira, who broke into high-octane, football-coded hits that lit up the crowd, only sharpened that criticism.
Bieber’s set has also become a flashpoint in a bigger debate. Should the World Cup final be a pure sporting spectacle or a global entertainment product? Traditionalists argue the extended halftime show disrupted the match’s rhythm and pushed football further into commercial territory, while others see it as an inevitable evolution in a streaming-era, attention-fractured world.
