Lausanne (Switzerland): the International Football Association Board (FIFA) approved the use of technology on Friday “semi-automated “to detect offside during the World Cup in Qatar 2022, a technology aimed at accelerating referee decisions and making them more reliable after the adoption of the video assistant referee (VAR) at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, this technology, tested during the Arab Cup at the end of 2021 and then the Club World Cup, aims to increase reliability and speed up the detection of intrusions. The technology was called “semi-automatic “because the final decision on being in offside or not is up to it in VAR ultimately, as opposed to goal line technology which categorically determines that the ball has crossed the line. The new technology, which will be used in the world football tournament in program from November 21 to December 18, relies on 12 cameras placed on the roof of the stadium to monitor “up to 29 data points” for each player “50 times per second,” according to a statement from “FIFA”. . A sensor positioned in the center of the ball sends data to the observation room “500 times per second”, allowing it to determine when the ball is being played with much greater accuracy than the human eye. FIFA explained that “by integrating (this) data and using artificial intelligence”, a warning will be sent to the video referees “whenever the ball is received by an attacker who was in offside position “at the moment of the pass. Within ‘a few seconds’, it will be up to them to manually check the timing of the pass and the series of offside, before informing the main referee who will make the final decision. And the decision of the referee to count the controversial goal of the French striker Kilian Mbappe in October 2021, in the victory of the “gallo” over Spain for 2-1 in the final of the European Nations League, to the recognition of the impossibility of fully automating the infiltration processes, once taken in considering the position of the players, it remains to be assessed whether the opponent is in able to put back in I intentionally play the ball. To allow fans inside the stadium to better understand the referees’ decisions, the images will then be converted in 3D animations that can be viewed on the big screen inside the stadium, as established by FIFA. (AFP)
