FIFA chiefs are bringing in new technology which will make offside decisions within THREE SECONDS.
The revolutionary semi-automated offsides are being trialled at the Club World Cup and could be brought in for the World Cup in Qatar by the end of the year.
They hope to remove the long delays over tight offside decisions with VAR and also use Artificial Intelligence software to track every player and show animated illustrations on big screens in stadiums as to why goals were disallowed.
Football’s governing body hope the new system will eventually become fully automated as the revolutionary software should help them make definitive decisions in the same way goal-line technology is used.
Pierluigi Collina, chairman of FIFA’s referees’ committee, believes the new system will speed up decisions even if they are anxious to avoid it being called “robot referees” because the match officials will still have the final say.
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Collina said: “I know that for headlines ‘robot offside’ or something similar is very easy. But this is not the case. You have seen that the technology is simply a tool used by a human being.
“There is not any outcome bypassing the match officials on the field of play, off the field of play. They are involved in the decision-making process and they are responsible for the final decision taken.
“It is still a tool. It is a tool available to increase accuracy and improve the time, something quicker.
“The last part, the animation, refers more to reliability. People understand from the image what happens and trust much more in what happened, the decision. If you do not understand because you do not see clearly what happened, then you start doubting the decision itself.”
Stadiums will have up to 12 cameras in use - some used by broadcasters and others specifically for the offside software - to track every player on the pitch.
Revolutionary software can track every body part of every player on the pitch and, eventually, it will be able to track 29 body parts of each player and data will be gathered at 50 frames-per-second.
Each decision can be determined in VAR hubs within three to four seconds, an animated image is then created within around 30 seconds and will then be shown on the big screen at the next break in play.
That should stop the long delays - some offsides take up to three minutes to be reviewed in the Premier League - and also ultimately remove controversial decisions as offsides will effectively become an exact science just like with goal line technology.
