Semi-automated system to speed up offside decisions at World Cup

Technology that helps to detect when a player is offside will be used at this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

Fifa has said the semi-automated system will significantly reduce the time required to make offside decisions through the use of Var.

The technology, which includes a sensor in the match ball and 12 tracking cameras, is the result of three years of research and testing.

Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of Fifa’s referees committee, said the system was expected to reduce the decision time for offsides from 70 seconds to about 20, after a series of trials, following which it was declared a “major success”.

There will be 12 dedicated tracking cameras mounted underneath the roof of each stadium. These will track the precise location of the ball and up to 29 data points of each individual player, 50 times per second.

Within the official match ball there will be an inertial measurement unit sensor, which sends data to the video operation room 500 times per second.

Fifa says this technology will allow for a “very precise detection of the kick point”.

When combined, the limb-trackby ing and ball-tracking data will provide an automated offside alert to the video match officials. Those officials will then check the decision themselves before informing the on-pitch referee.

If the officials do not agree with the system’s conclusions, they can still manually select the moment the ball was kicked and draw their own offside lines on the screen, as they would now.

Supporters will have to wait for a decision to be confirmed by the referee on the pitch. Once that has happened, though, the positional data points used in the decisionmaking process will be used to create a 3D animation that will show the precise position of the players at the moment the ball was played. Once created, the image will be shown on screens in the stadium and made available to broadcasters.

Despite the increased use of technology in the game, Collina has denied on-pitch referees are being rendered irrelevant.

The technology can only inform the officials when a player is offside. It cannot answer questions such as whether that player is interfering with an opponent, or assess whether a foul or handball is committed.

“It is called semi-automated offside because the final decision is still taken by the video match official,” Collina said.

“The aim is to give an answer as quickly as possible, with this answer being very, very accurate. The Var has to validate the final decision before informing the referee.

“Our objective is to prepare the referee as best as possible to avoid using the technology. But the technology is there to avoid making mistakes. Even the best referee can make a mistake. He’s a human being.

“That’s why we implemented a system using tools that can really reduce the possibility of a human mistake affecting the outcome of a match.”