Recognizing offside situations faster and more accurately: That’s what the semi-automatic offside detection that will be used at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is all about.
Offside or no offside? Every football fan knows them by now: these interruptions that stop an exciting match when the VAR in the Cologne basement moves the calibrated lines back and forth to decide whether a goal was regular or not. It takes seconds, sometimes even minutes. Annoying.
Offside – cleared in three to four seconds
At the World Cup in Qatar in November, all of that should no longer exist. Then the so-called “semi-automatic offside detection” is used. A technique that will signal to the VAR and the referees on the pitch in a fraction of a second whether an offside position has occurred or not. Twelve cameras will be mounted under the stadium roofs at each World Cup venue. It should then only take three to four seconds to make an offside decision.
The technology automatically sends an alert when a player is in an offside position, then the VAR must assess whether that player is active and/or interfering with the game, and if so, send a notification to the assistant referee to raise the flag .
Enormous amount of data from twelve cameras
The amount of data delivered will be enormous: the cameras capture the ball and up to 29 data points from each player 50 times per second. This is how their exact position on the playing field is calculated. The 29 data points recorded cover all limbs and extremities that are relevant for offside decisions.
With a built-in sensor for inertial measurement data (IMU), the official match ball for the 2022 World Cup provides another element for detecting tight offside situations. The sensor at the heart of the ball transmits ball data to the video review room 500 times per second, allowing the precise moment of ball release to be identified.
Semi-automatic offside detection – how it works
It’s complex and constantly running in the background of every game: With the combination of limb and ball location data and the application of artificial intelligence, the new technology sends the video match officials in the video review room an automatic offside alert whenever the ball is accepted by an attacker who was offside at the time the ball was passed by a team-mate. Before informing the on-field referee, the video on-ice officials review the proposed decision by manually checking the automatically selected ball release timing and the offside line, which was automatically created based on the calculated player limb positions. This happens within seconds, which means that offside decisions can be made faster and more precisely.
Within seconds – graphics for the fans in the stadium and on TV
After confirmation of the decision by the video on-field match officials and referee, the same data points used for the decision are processed into 3D animations showing the position of the player’s limbs at the time the ball was released.
The 3D animations, which always show the best possible perspective for an offside situation, are then shown on the big screen in the stadium and sent to the FIFA broadcasting partners so that all spectators are informed as transparently as possible.
Collina: “Offside decisions took too long”
Pierluigi Collina, head of the FIFA Referees Committee, is confident: “The VARs have had a tremendously positive effect on football. Thanks to them, there are far fewer wrong decisions. We expect that with the semi-automated offside technology, there will be even fewer.”
The former cult referee from Italy finds: “We are aware that it sometimes takes too long to check possible offside situations, especially when the decision for offside is very close. This is where semi-automatic offside technology can help to make quicker and more accurate decisions.”
“Dry runs” in Düsseldorf and Munich, real tests at the Arab Cup and the Club World Cup
The new technology has already been tested several times: in 2021 for the first time in “dry runs” with young players in Düsseldorf and Munich, at the Arab Cup in Qatar in November 2021 and at the 2021 Club World Cup, which was held in the United Arab Emirates in February 2022. then also in official competitions. Now FIFA decided: The system is ready for use for the World Cup.