football
The chip comes in the ball: FIFA uses semi-automatic offside technology at the Qatar World Cup
Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema (in the white shirt) scores a goal against Liverpool in the Champions League final, which was canceled for offside.
© Peter Byrne / dpa
In Qatar, for the first time at a World Cup finals, referees will be assisted by a semi-automated system for making offside decisions. Will bots make all decisions soon? The FIFA president says: No.
With semi-automatic offside technology, FIFA wants VAR decisions to be made faster and more reliably at the World Cup. And as the FIFA announced Friday, the system will be used in 64 matches in the tournament in Qatar. “We are ready to use it. We are satisfied with the test results, and we continue our work,” FIFA President Pierluigi Collina said in an interview with digital media about the new technology. “We want accurate decisions,” the Italian added.
The new measurement technique for offside decisions was last tested in the Arab Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup in February. The 500Hz signal in the ball and dozens of cameras that record player movements through data points are used to more accurately record the position of players who might be offside than before. The data is checked by a video assistant and immediately sent to the referee on the field.
More accurate measurement should also save time
According to Kollina, in addition to more accurate measurements, they also hope to save time. So far, intrusion checks take about 70 seconds, with the new system you can reduce them to about 25 seconds. Fans in the stadium must be informed of decisions via video screens. “FIFA wants to continue to promote technology to improve football at all levels,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino was quoted as saying in a statement.
Colina again contradicted the accusation that technology would replace rulers with robots. The former supreme referee said: “I know some are talking about an offside robot, and that is a mistake because the referee and the assistant referee are still deciding.”
The end of development is not in sight. But “the referee remains the final decision maker,” Collina said. Introduction video rule success story. “The game is much cleaner, there is no longer a tug in standard situations” – and the ingestion and mimicry have completely disappeared, Colina said.
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