“DRIVING FORCE”
Giant screens showed footage of Brazil’s late football icon Pele from 1977, addressing the crowd at the old Giants Stadium on this same New Jersey site following his final professional game. Pele died in 2022, months after the last World Cup.
PS22 Chorus, a New York school choir that has gone viral globally with YouTube covers of popular hits, closed out the show, along with Coldplay – whose singer Chris Martin curated the entire performance – and characters from The Muppets and Sesame Street.
The FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund was described by organisers as the “driving force” behind the half-time show.
It disburses cash to community groups that provide education and sport to underprivileged children in countries from Ghana and South Africa to France and the UK.
The fund aims to raise US$100 million. It had passed US$60 million before the show, including a US$1 donation from every World Cup ticket sold, plus contributions from corporations, nation states and private donors.
FIFA has already announced 58 groups that will receive grants, reaching 400,000 children worldwide.
Even before the game, a parade of stars took the microphone to whip up the crowd.
Post Malone headlined a closing ceremony, and Tom Cruise delivered a monologue about football unifying the world, but was largely drowned out in the stadium by singing fans.
Robbie Williams, Nicole Scherzinger and Jennifer Hudson were among the other A-list performers.