IShowSpeed Performs at 2026 FIFA World Cup Final, First Content Creator on the Stage

IShowSpeed performed his single World Cup (Champions) at the 2026 FIFA World Cup closing ceremony on 19 July, taking the field before Spain and Argentina contested the final. The 21-year-old is the first content creator ever to perform at a World Cup ceremony, a distinction that says as much about how FIFA now sources its music as it does about the streamer himself.

The song he sang was not commissioned for the tournament. FIFA came to him for it.

The Closing Ceremony Performance

Speed was the first performer to appear on the field ahead of the championship match at New York New Jersey Stadium, the MetLife Stadium venue in New Jersey, leading an energetic production alongside a troupe of drummers and dancers dressed in brightly coloured tracksuits. It was a straight musical set rather than the chaotic gaming reactions, public stunts and trademark backflips his livestreams are built on.

How a Fan Song Became an Official World Cup Track

World Cup (Champions) was released on 1 June and became closely associated with football fans almost immediately, racking up more than 90 million YouTube views in its first month and establishing itself as one of the biggest football songs of the tournament alongside Shakira’s. According to Speed, FIFA approached him to secure the rights to use the track.

That sequence is the substance of the milestone. What began as an unofficial fan anthem was adopted by the governing body rather than replaced by something built in-house, which is how a creator ended up with a ceremony slot at the sport’s biggest fixture without ever being signed up to write for it.

Who IShowSpeed Is

Darren Watkins Jr. has grown into one of the biggest internet personalities in the world over the past few years, with more than 50 million followers each on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and billions of views across his videos. His football obsession, and his devotion to Cristiano Ronaldo in particular, has made him a familiar face at major sporting events, having streamed from the Ballon d’Or, the UEFA Champions League final and countless matches, with clips reliably going viral.

He was a fixture of this tournament long before the ceremony, documenting his experiences at matches and Fan Fests. The moments that travelled included an older FIFA employee saying the code phrase to end his stream, Speed wearing split jerseys because the teams he backed kept losing, and him begging Lamine Yamal to beat Lionel Messi purely on the grounds of his Ronaldo allegiance.

Read More: IShowSpeed Is Rolling Stone’s Most Influential Creator of 2025 

Read More: BLAST Partners With FIFA World Cup Hospitality Firm MATCH for Premium Fan Travel

The Other Side of His World Cup

The same livestreams that carried the viral moments also captured repeated racist abuse directed at Watkins, who is Black, by Argentina supporters across several matches.

At the 3 July fixture between Argentina and Cape Verde in Miami, a woman wearing an Argentina jersey made disrespectful gestures toward him and screamed at him for more than 30 seconds, all of it documented on his stream. She can clearly be heard telling him to “go home” alongside a profanity, and some outlets reported she also used a racial slur and told him to “go cry at the zoo”. FIFA said on 7 July that it was investigating an incident between a supporter and Watkins at that match, adding that it “strongly condemns racism, hate and discrimination in all forms”.

It did not stop there. At Argentina’s Round of 16 match against Egypt on 7 July, several fans made insulting gestures toward him, with one pantomiming a monkey and using a Spanish anti-gay slur. During Argentina’s semi-final against England, Watkins was struck in the head by an aluminium cup while the South American side trailed 1-0, and after Argentina equalised, fans threw beer and other items at him, flipped him off and made further obscene gestures.

So the tournament that put a content creator on a World Cup stage for the first time is also the one where that creator was abused across multiple fixtures, with FIFA both booking him for its closing ceremony and, as of its 7 July statement, still investigating what happened to him at one of its own matches.