Global Citizen

If you haven’t heard of Global Citizen before, that may be about to change due to the charity’s role in the first ever half-time show during a World Cup final on Sunday.

The show, curated by Coldplay frontman and longtime Global Citizen supporter Chris Martin, will feature performances from some of the biggest stars in music, from Madonna and Shakira to K-pop sensations BTS and Justin Bieber. 

It is exactly the kind of glitzy event that the advocacy group has become known for – perhaps more so than its stated aim of ending extreme poverty – but which has also led to controversy about how it uses the tens of millions of dollars it raises every year.

Global Citizen sprang out of another charity, the Global Poverty Project, and staged its first high-profile show, featuring Neil Young, the Foo Fighters and John Legend, in Central Park in September 2012.

It was timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly in New York, in a bid to secure donation and policy commitments from world leaders. Most of the 60,000 attendees received free tickets in return for completing advocacy actions on the Global Citizen platform.

Since then it has repeated this model with shows across the world, from Mumbai to Hamburg, Johannesburg, Paris, Lagos, London, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Seoul starring Jay-Z, Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Elton John and, of course, Coldplay.

Global Citizen claims that it has secured $49bn in funding to tackle poverty and protect the environment over this time. It does not distribute funding itself; rather it aims to persuade governments and corporations to pledge money and action, often during its concerts.

Its collaboration on the World Cup final half-time show is part of a joint campaign with Fifa to raise $100m for education and football opportunities for children across the planet.

But Global Citizen’s big shows don’t come cheap. Around 60-70 per cent of its revenues go on staging, producing and organising its “festivals”. Its most recent accounts, for 2024, reported a $3m loss on revenues of $45m, despite artists typically performing for free.

Then there is the question of whether it can take the credit for all of the donations it claims to have secured. 

As well as any pledges made on-stage at its shows, the charity says it counts any funding “driven in a significant way by the actions of Global Citizens, as well as our own high level advocacy efforts, conducted with partners” in its $49bn total.

Some governments, including in the Netherlands and Sweden, have denied that Global Citizen’s work was behind specific pledges that they made. A spokesperson for the charity has said that some politicians don’t like to admit they were pressured into action.

“The central question is whether the feel-good nature of the Global Citizen approach has been effective at raising and directing funds toward global poverty and health that would not have been available otherwise,” non-profit financing expert Professor Brian Mittendorf, of Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, told Devex in 2021. 

“Or has it instead created a mistaken sense of scale and accomplishment that could breed complacency in the face of dire needs?”

Global Citizen’s links to Fifa extend beyond the $100m funding project and Sunday’s World Cup final half-time show, however. 

One of its most ambitious and high-profile shows came in 2018, when Jay-Z, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran and – yes – Coldplay performed at the FNB Stadium on the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. 

Also appearing on stage was the man credited with making it happen, mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe, who used the occasion to pledge $250m from his family foundation towards land reform and agricultural development projects for black communities in South Africa.

Motsepe also happens to be the most powerful man in African football, as president of its continental federation CAF, and is seen as one of the most likely successors to Gianni Infantino when the current Fifa kingpin steps down.

The Motsepe Foundation has been a partner of Global Citizen for eight years, with he and wife Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe regular speakers at its biggest events.

Some observers believe the 63-year-old has his eye on the South African presidency instead. Of Motsepe and Global Citizen, one geopolitics watcher said: “It is easy to understand how they can help one another.”

If a charity aimed at ending poverty partnering with Fifa at by far the most expensive World Cup of all time feels incongruous, well, it is – but it is also in keeping with Global Citizen’s modus operandi and Fifa’s oft-repeated if simplistic claim that “football unites the world”.