Purists Complain About Commercialism at the World Cup

Brenda Elsey, professor of history, was interviewed by The New York Times about the extended halftime show of the 2026 FIFA World Cup’s championship match between Spain and Argentina.

The article reports that purists considered the performance – which featured Madonna, Justin Bieber, Shakira, BTS, and the New York Philharmonic – to be another example of FIFA catering to corporate interests. This year’s World Cup, hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, was expanded to 48 teams, featured abnormally high ticket prices, and added mandatory hydration breaks that were used by some broadcasters to air advertisements.

“It’s not even so much that people feel upset that the sport is changing, but that it’s not changing for a reason to make it better,” said Dr. Elsey. “It’s not changing at the behest of the majority of fans, it’s changing at the behest of commercial interest by a very few overlords.”

Dr. Elsey, a leading scholar of global soccer culture and gender equity in sports, is development lead for the Americas with the Fare Network – an international nongovernmental organization that is dedicated to combating discrimination and inequality in soccer. She co-wrote the book Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America (2019) and is the author of Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (2011). In 2017, Elsey was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach and conduct research in Argentina, focusing on the history of women’s soccer from the 1930s to the present.