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Wales Online
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Mathew Davies

Robbie Williams World Cup opening ceremony: Age, net worth and wife's sex life confession

Robbie Williams will be performing at the official opening ceremony for the World Cup in Qatar.

Hosts Qatar face Ecuador in the opening game and there will be the traditional opening ceremony beforehand, starting at around 2pm UK time.

BTS' K-pop superstar Jeon Jungkook and Canadian actress Nora Fatehi are set to perform, while former Take That singer Robbie Williams is also on the bill.

READ MORE: World Cup opening ceremony Live updates

For the uninitiated, Williams rose to fame in the 1990s with boy band Take That before launching a successful solo career which has seen his net worth soar to £252million.

Born in Stoke-on-Trent, Williams is 48 years old and is married to Ayda Field, a Turkish-American model and actress. They married in 2010.

She recently admitted that their sex life was "completely dead" due to the strains of parenthood and their four children.

She explained: "When there was romance, when that happens, yes, there would be a communal sleeping place just out of physical need. But now that that's completely dead. It's been obliterated by four kids."

Speaking on her podcast, Postcards from the Edge, she said: "There is really no need to go to bed at the same time. It's just a joint work space now.

"I might as well make the bed like a ping pong table and we could just play every now and then. And then stray off into other corners to sleep.

"I think that's what it is - it's a wee work space."

Williams, along with other stars, have been criticised for going out to Qatar to perform or endorse the tournament. TV presenter Richard Madeley said on Good Morning Britain, as reported by StokeonTrentLive “It just seems to me Robbie going to Qatar, for money, Black Eyed Peas going to Qatar, for money, and David Beckham endorsing Qatar, for money, they’re all endorsing the regime."

Send your message of support to the Wales football team at the World Cup here

However, Williams has hit back at the claims, saying in an interview with il Venerdi : "Anybody leaving messages saying ‘no to Qatar’ are doing so on Chinese technology,” he told the Italian magazine, referencing China’s similarly poor record on human rights.

"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."

He added: "I also think that change will take a long time,” he said. “What we’re saying is: ‘You behave like us, or we will annex you from society. Behave like us, because we’ve got it right’.

"I don’t condone any abuses of human rights anywhere,” Williams continued. “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."

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