Robbie Williams has announced that he will be headlining the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup. He will take to the stage in front of 60,000 people at the Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor ahead of Qatar's opening fixture against Ecuador.
The Let Me Entertain You singer will be joined by K-Pop star Jungkook on Sunday as they both raise the curtain on the event. Fan may know the 25-year-old South Korean for being part of the boyband BTS and also for collaborating with Charlie Puth on his 2018 hit Left and Right.
This will be the second time that Robbie Williams has headlined a World Cup opening ceremony. Four years ago he performed during Russia's opening ceremony and came under fire for making a middle finger gesture during his encore of Rock DJ.
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And his latest move hasn't gone down well either. Many fans have criticised the 48-year-old singer for performing due to the human rights issues that have surrounded the build-up to the tournament and will continue to be a problem during.
Amnesty International's Peter Frankental stated: “Major stars like Robbie Williams have significant influence and we’d like to see him using this concert to publicly address the topic of Qatar’s poor human rights record, especially widespread labour abuses and the criminalisation of LGBTI people."
Williams has responded to the criticism in an interview with La Republica, labeling it 'hypocritical' to not travel to Qatar and perform. He stated: "You get this microscope that goes 'okay, these are the baddies, and we need to rally against them'... I think that the hypocrisy there is that if we take that case in this place, we need to apply that unilaterally to the world. Then if we apply that unilaterally to the world, nobody can go anywhere".
"I don't condone any abuses of human rights anywhere. But, that being said, if we're not condoning human rights abuses anywhere, then it would be the shortest tour the world has ever known: I wouldn't even be able to perform in my own kitchen".
The World Cup opening ceremony will begin at 3:00pm on Sunday and the first match will kick off at 4pm. It will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC Iplayer.
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