Shakira kicks off in Madrid this Friday night a marathon of 12 concerts that will bring her world tour to a close and end an eight-year absence from Spanish stages.The Colombian singer, 49, will perform until 11 October in a temporary venue with capacity for 50,000 spectators, erected in the south of the capital and dubbed “Shakira stadium”, according to Live Nation, the promoter of the shows.With no new European dates announced, Madrid’s authorities are expecting a major economic impact from her return to Spain. In May and June the city already hosted ten concerts by Bad Bunny, another of Latin music’s biggest stars.Shakira had not performed in Spain since 2018, several years before her separation from former Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué, a legendary Barcelona defender, became public in 2022.The artist embarked in February 2025 on a world tour to present “Las mujeres ya no lloran”, an album inspired by her break-up with the former Barcelona player and which earned her a fourth Grammy Award.Over a career spanning several decades, Shakira has sold more than 95 million records worldwide and has performed at both the opening ceremony and the final of the 2026 football World Cup. “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” was also the official song of the 2010 World Cup, held in South Africa, the first ever staged on the African continent.Shakira’s return to Madrid also comes after, in November 2023, she paid a fine of 7.3 million euros as part of a settlement with the Spanish justice system. The singer pleaded guilty to avoid having to stand trial for tax fraud.In that high-profile case, Shakira also paid 17.45 million euros to the Spanish tax authorities to regularise her tax affairs in the country.