FIFA to stage Club World Cup final halftime show, Robbie Williams and Laura Pausini to perform pre-game

Eagle-eyed fans at MetLife Stadium may have noticed a stage being built in the sky.

As football teams from around the world battled it out on the pitch below, this curious platform slowly began to take shape over the last few weeks at the New Jersey venue for the Club World Cup’s final.

Its podium-like shape could have made you wonder. Is this where either Chelsea or Paris Saint-Germain will be crowned world champions on Sunday? Or, more logically, is it where the final’s halftime show will be performed? Turns out, it’s the latter, as FIFA confirmed to The Athletic this week.

This stage, high in the nose-bleed sections of the stadium, will be where J Balvin, Doja Cat, Tems and Emmanuel Kelly will make history for FIFA. Across all its many competitions over the decades, this will be the first time a FIFA tournament includes a halftime show.

Global Citizen, which partnered with FIFA and is leading the halftime show with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, revealed more details to U.S. magazine ‘Rolling Stone’ on Friday. Together, the groups have created a high-tech stage in the upper stands, to avoid potentially damaging the pitch at halftime of such an important game, featuring 40,000 pounds of gear, scenery and structural trusses. It took six semi-trucks to deliver all this material to the venue, Global Citizen said, with the stage itself made up of 4,000 feet of pipe bracing and LED displays with nearly 16 million pixels.

“By building our platform high in the stands, we ensured that the newly installed natural grass remains untouched while delivering an unforgettable show that is designed to be time-efficient and visually stunning,” Hugh Evans, Global Citizen’s chief executive, told ‘Rolling Stone’.

The 15-minute halftime show is a curious addition to FIFA’s tournament lineup, but it falls in line with the body’s theme of expanding and growing this new-look competition as much as it can. Halftime shows are more a tradition in American sports than European soccer, with the NFL’s Super Bowl spectaculars being the biggest example of what this can look like.

While FIFA has notably never hosted a halftime performance in the past, last year, South American equivalent Conmebol took a risk when it tapped Shakira to debut in Copa América’s inaugural halftime show at its final in Miami, Florida. The plans were openly criticized because of the extended break it would create for the players, a result of staff having to set up a stage and break it down again before the match could resume.

It will be interesting to see if there are any gripes now that FIFA’s in charge of a similar performance, or if the sky-high staging at MetLife helps alleviate any of those potential grievances.

The way foreign executives see it, Americans have successfully merged sport with entertainment in a way that is unmatched elsewhere in the world. It’s why so many soccer tournaments have come to the U.S. in recent years, and it’s why next year’s World Cup, co-hosted with Canada and Mexico, is fully embracing this in not-so-subtle ways, such as a halftime show.

This weekend’s Club World Cup final will also feature a pre-match ceremony. FIFA is encouraging fans to arrive at the stadium early to catch it at 1:30 p.m. ET, or to tune in then. The match’s start time is 90 minutes later.

The pre-match action features three parts.

First, there’s the ‘countdown to the final’, followed by a performance of ‘Desire’ by FIFA’s music ambassador Robbie Williams and Laura Pausini. There will also be “a powerful tribute to the tournament hosts”, with the U.S. national anthem performed, a military color guard and a “dramatic flyover and dazzling pyrotechnics (that) will electrify the stadium”, in FIFA’s words.

The latter is fitting considering that U.S. President Donald Trump has said he’ll attend the final, joking that he would be “delivering” the trophy to the event following its recent stay at the White House in Washington. What we do know is that the trophy presentation ceremony will be pitch-side after the final whistle.

There is still plenty we don’t know about the halftime show – like whether performers will be limited to that stage, or if we’ll see anyone pull a Lady Gaga. How could anyone forget her big leaps and dramatic exit during the 2017 Super Bowl in Houston, Texas?

One sure thing is that whatever happens this weekend will likely offer lessons and instruction for 2026.

(Top photo: Ira L. Black – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)