Billboard readers have named Shakira and Burna Boy’s "Dai Dai" the best FIFA World Cup song of all time, the outlet reported on June 1 after polling its audience on official World Cup anthems released since 1990.
"Dai Dai," the official 2026 FIFA World Cup song recorded by Shakira and Burna Boy after they joined forces in May, won with more than 31 percent of the vote. Shakira’s 2010 collaboration with South African band Freshlyground, "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)," finished a close second with more than 26 percent, while Ricky Martin’s 1998 anthem "Cup of Life (La Copa de la Vida)" took third with almost 25 percent.
The poll compiled reader votes across 10 official FIFA World Cup songs issued from 1990 through 2026. Billboard’s result elevates the newest entry — a track that blends Afrobeats, dance-pop, world beats and reggaetón and name-checks players from Maradona to Messi — above two long-standing anthems in collective memory.
Context matters: "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" was recorded with Freshlyground for the 2010 World Cup and has been widely cited as one of the tournament’s defining songs. Martin’s "Cup of Life (La Copa de la Vida)," recorded for the 1998 World Cup in France, remains influential as a career milestone and earned a Grammy for best Latin pop performance; it also peaked at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The close finish between "Dai Dai" and "Waka Waka" is the story’s friction point. Despite the new song’s lead in percentage points, Shakira’s 2010 anthem — already entrenched as a global singalong — finished only a few points behind, underscoring how recent releases can quickly compete with long-established World Cup staples for listener allegiance.
Billboard’s poll gives readers a clear ranking: the 2026 official anthem now tops the outlet’s list, with a familiar 2010 track and a late-1990s classic following. The published results do not include the total number of votes cast, leaving the raw turnout and the breadth of the sample unclear even as the percentage margins are explicit.
For anyone cataloging shakira world cup songs or tracing the lineage of FIFA’s official anthems, the June 1 poll is a snapshot of current reader opinion rather than an absolute cultural verdict. It confirms that "Dai Dai" has connected strongly with this audience, while also reminding that established hits like "Waka Waka" and "Cup of Life" retain significant support.
What comes next is straightforward: "Dai Dai" arrives at the 2026 tournament carrying the distinction of being Billboard readers’ top choice among official songs from 1990 to 2026, but without the poll’s total-vote figure there remains an open question about how representative that preference is of the broader global audience. The ranking settles which songs Billboard readers favored on June 1 — whether it reshapes the soundtrack fans take to stadiums next year depends on how listeners and broadcasters adopt the 2026 anthem in practice.
