FIFA guarantees more accurate offside decisions in Qatar World Cup

DOHA: FIFA’s latest technology developed over the last three years would help make more precise and quicker VAR offside judgements in the Qatar World Cup, affirmed referees chief Pierluigi Collina on Friday. 

The “semi-automatic offside technology” will decide on even the trickiest offside rulings faster than the previous method. A 3D animated rendering of the action will also be shown live to fans in the stadium and on television during the showpiece event starting tomorrow.

“(It) gives us the possibility to be faster and more accurate in terms of decisions about offside,” said Collina, chairman of FIFA’s referees committee.

“Just to be clear, being faster does not mean we will have instantaneous assessment of offside. It will be less than now, certainly, but we cannot have an answer one-second, or basically live.” he added.

The referees head, however, underlined that the final decision always belongs to the match official – on the VAR, the video assistant referee, on the field of play, to the referee.

The innovative system tracks the ball with 12 dedicated tracking cameras that are positioned underneath the stadium’s roof and calculate the precise position of each player on the field using up to 29 data points, 50 times per second.

The optical tracking technology was put to the test at the FIFA Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, as well as at the Arab Cup in Qatar in last December.

“It’s the most accurate supporting offside tool at the moment.” said  FIFA’s director of technology and innovation, Johannes Holzmueller. “We analysed the data and the outcome was very positive.”

Collina added that his team held two workshops for all 32 team coaches and visited each side’s camps to bring clarity among the players about the technology.

Referees at the World Cup had been advised to issue red cards for anything that could harm another player’s health, including elbows to the face, studs-up tackles, and dangerously high feet.

“Here are the best players in the world,” stated Collina. “It would be a shame if some of these players would be unable to play because of an injury caused by an opponent.

“So the first message we went through was to protect the safety of the players. Something that may endanger the safety of an opponent, players and coaches should expect… a red card.”

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