Artificial intelligence will be used in Qatar to determine offside decisions
This year’s World Cup may look a little bit different to those which came before it after FIFA revealed that it will make use of state-of-the-art offside technology throughout the event in Qatar.
More than four years after Video Assisted Refereeing (VAR) was rolled out at the World Cup in Russia, world football’s governing body has continued its drive to modernize the game and will make use of Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SOAT) throughout the tournament later this year.
The technology relies upon 12 tracking cameras which will track various points on each player’s body at a rate of 50 frames per second and, in conjunction with a sensor embedded in the match football, should lead to clearer – and crucially, faster – offside decisions at pivotal points in games.
The artificial intelligence system will be able to determine with near certainty if a player is offside at any given point during a match – with video officials also being used to input the exact moment the ball was kicked.