The 2022 World Cup will feature semi-automatic offside technology. How does it work?

The International Football Federation (FIFA) has officially announced that semi-automatic VAR technology will be used for offside detection in the final part of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. It has already been tested in two rather serious tournaments – last year’s Club World Championship and the Arab Nations Cup. In response to the positive feedback, FIFA decided to use the new technology in the world’s main football tournament – the World Cup, the next draw of which will be held in Qatar at the end of the year.

We will talk about what semi-automatic offside detection technology is, how it works and whether it will be possible to fully automate the process of correcting the offside position in football – we will talk now.

Semi-automatic offside detection technology – what is it?

“Semi-automatic offside detection technology was developed specifically to assist VAR ARs. In the final part of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the video room will automatically receive an offside notification, as well as an automatically selected waypoint and an automatically drawn offside line. All this will be available just a few seconds after the situation on the field.

“From now on, the VAR ARs will have to confirm the system’s proposed point for the transfer and the proposed offside line. “Aides in a dedicated video room will inform the referee of the match on the pitch about the final decision,” said Johannes Holzmüller, FIFA Director of Football Technology and Innovation.

Pierluigi Collina, the head of the FIFA refereeing committee, who believes that all technological innovations in football should be aimed at speeding up the processes in order not to tire the audience and not to upset the players, also gave full support to the promotion of the innovation. fans, players and managers.

“For accuracy, this is an important detail because if you can be more accurate, that’s fine. Speaking in terms of time, I think this aspect lies more on the psychological plane. We felt that something needed to change, so we wanted to find a system that responded more quickly to a key question. We understand that football is different from other team sports and it is important to make quick decisions here, so we have worked hard in this direction in recent years.”

While few experts have been able to evaluate the manufacturability and practicality of the semi-automatic offside detection system, former English Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher believes the innovation will be an important step in the evolution of football.

“When such big changes come, I think it will give a new impetus to the development of football,” Gallagher said.

How does semi-auto offside technology work?

Currently, in matches with the required number of cameras and the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system, only available cameras are used to decide a player’s possible offside. With semi-automatic technology, cameras installed on the roof of the stadium will be used for this task. With their help, it will be possible to simultaneously track the positions of all 22 players in order to accurately calculate their position on the field at the right time. For each player, 29 data points will be tracked, covering all possible limb positions that directly affect offside determination.

In addition, the official Adidas Al Rihla ball will be used at the World Cup in Qatar and will be equipped with a special sensor that sends data 500 times per second. This allows you to accurately record the moment the ball makes contact to determine offside. These technologies are expected to increase the accuracy of fixing the offside position by at least tenfold.

“12 special optical surveillance cameras will be installed in each stadium. All will work together and with 100% sync. In addition, the official ball with pluggable fastening technology will be used. An IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) sensor with a frequency of 500 Hz will be erected in its center. All this information will be transmitted to the video room via antennas around the stadium so that the system can accurately determine the offside position. We will ensure that a very sensitive ball contact point is automatically detected, which is especially important in offside situations close to the border.”

“We will combine different datasets using artificial intelligence, which will result in an automatic alert that will appear at the corresponding scale in the video room. This whole procedure happens instantaneously within a few seconds. But of course on top of that, we are assured that everything is correct and everything is fine by the combat officials. There will be a manual review process to qualify,” Holtzmuller explained.

The technology was designed to dispel doubts about controversial offsides.

After the introduction of the VAR system, its most ardent critics have repeatedly cited the fact that targets were often canceled due to “millimetric” or “marginal” offsides, as it is sometimes called in the expert community. These are parts of the offensive player’s body that are subject to the rules (for example, part of the head, knee, or foot) where it is closer to the goal than a defender who was previously considered a defender. He went offside in VAR and caused the ball to be cancelled, to the dismay of one team’s fans and to the joy of the other.

Now FIFA assures that its semi-automatic offside detection technology has the maximum accuracy currently technologically possible, because its decision should not be left in doubt.

“Our goal is to have such precision technology as the highly praised goal line technology. With the latter, if the ball crosses the goal line by a few millimeters, it is considered a goal. In professional football, everyone is happy and praising the goal line technology. Something similar should happen with semi-automatic offside detection technology. Basically, I see no difference between confirming whether the ball has completely crossed the goal line and confirming whether the player is in an offside position,” he said.

“In the new technology, we use the same elements to create 3D animation because we want to give the fans the best angle possible. I think everyone agrees that we have the most accurate and unbiased decisions about offside positions. This is especially important because we’ve frequently asked if the player has been offside before. There were disagreements. Replay aims to show the exact position of the players when the ball is kicked, and the 3D animation will broadcast the necessary explanations in graphic form on the giant screens and TV picture in the stadium,” added Holzmüller.

How long does it take for the referees to make a decision?

FIFA hopes that its semi-automatic offside detection technology will help referees to reduce the time it takes to make key decisions severalfold.

“I’ve heard that it will take 4-5 seconds at most for the system to determine offside. This will allow us to reduce the average time needed to make an offside decision from the current 70 seconds to 20-25. In the case of simple sections it will probably be even less. “We need to take into account the human factor and the need for verification. But overall, we are moving towards a situation where all decisions in football are made more dynamically and are as accurate as possible. These are our goals,” says Collina.

Will it be possible to fully automate the process of determining the offside position?

In connection with such advanced technologies, many in the football environment have a logical question – is it possible to hope for a fully automatic offside correction process in the foreseeable future?

According to Pierluigi Collina, such a solution to the problem is not worth mentioning: “The goal line technology clarifies simple facts like “black” and “white” because there is only one ball and one goal line. In this case, it was quite easy to find a fully automatic solution In a situation where there is a definition of offside, the decision is made after analyzing not only the physical position of the players on the field, but also their degree of participation in the playing segment. Technology can of course make a categorical assessment, but the final decision should still remain in the hands of the judges. The participation of the referees in the assessment of the offside position is decisive and undeniable.”

Does the future of football arbitration belong to robots?

Based on the above thesis, Collina also does not share the optimism of some experts about the possibility of replacing human referees with full-fledged robots that will perform their tasks within the framework of fully programmable concepts.

“Sometimes we hear talk about referee robots and things like that. I understand that this is a very interesting story for the media headlines, but not in our case. The referees we are used to in matches and decision-making will continue to be needed, because of the evaluation of the section, the implementation of technological systems, etc.