Post Malone Will Headline the FIFA World Cup 2026 Closing Ceremony
Post Malone is set to perform on one of the biggest stages in the world.
The Grammy-nominated singer and rapper has been announced as the headliner for the FIFA World Cup 2026 closing ceremony, which takes place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Sunday, July 19. The show kicks off at 1:30 p.m. ET — 90 minutes before the tournament final, with kickoff scheduled for 3 p.m.
"At a time when sport, culture and global attention converge, Post Malone will deliver a performance designed to celebrate the tournament's journey and ignite the atmosphere before the world's attention turns to the two finalists," said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Malone joins a previously announced closing ceremony lineup that includes Tom Cruise, Jennifer Hudson, Laura Pausini, Nicole Scherzinger, Robbie Williams, and IShowSpeed.
The closing ceremony is separate from the halftime show, which is its own event — and an equally stacked one. Shakira, Madonna, BTS, Justin Bieber, and Coldplay are all performing during the 11-minute FIFA World Cup Final halftime show, curated by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. Shakira has described it as "pretty historic."
Why Post Malone Makes Sense for This Moment
Post Malone is one of the few artists working right now whose appeal genuinely crosses genre, generation, and geography in ways that make sense for a global audience of hundreds of millions.
His catalog covers an unusual amount of ground. Nine diamond-certified songs — the highest certification the RIAA offers, requiring 10 million combined sales and streams — including "Rockstar," "Circles," "Sunflower," "Psycho," and "Better Now." "Sunflower," his collaboration with Swae Lee for the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack, became the highest-certified single in RIAA history. That kind of reach isn't common.
His most recent album, F-1 Trillion, marked a full pivot into country music and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 — making him one of the only artists in recent memory to reach the top of the charts with a genre debut rather than a return to form. It cemented his reputation as one of music's most genuinely flexible crossover acts rather than a one-lane artist.
The Broader Picture
The 2026 World Cup is the largest in the tournament's history — 48 teams across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, playing out over 39 days. The final at MetLife Stadium will be among the most-watched sporting events in human history. Getting the entertainment lineup right for that stage matters in a way that most events don't have to worry about.
The closing ceremony and halftime show lineups together — Post Malone, Shakira, Madonna, BTS, Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Jennifer Hudson, Tom Cruise — represent a deliberate effort to speak to every corner of the global fanbase simultaneously. Pop, hip-hop, country, K-pop, rock, Latin music, Hollywood spectacle. The calculus is pretty clear: nobody should be able to tune in and feel like the entertainment wasn't made for them.
Post Malone performing before the biggest soccer match on the planet, in the country where soccer has spent decades trying to fully arrive — it's a strange and fitting symbol of where both the artist and the sport are right now.
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