FIFA highlights World Cup technology at Atlanta summit
FIFA highlighted three technological innovations it will use during the World Cup that it hopes will improve the experience for teams, spectators and those watching from streaming devices.
Atlanta and Mercedes-Benz Stadium will host eight matches during this summer’s tournament. FIFA is hosting a meeting in Atlanta for all of the federations who will compete in the tournament to cover all aspects of operations and logistics for the 48-team field.
The innovations, which were previewed during the tournament draw in December, are automated offside and player scans, referee body camera and FIFA AI Pro, a collection of data points that every team in the tournament can use for scouting opponents and self-scouting.
Some of the innovations have been used in leagues, other tournaments and to lesser extents in past World Cups. This summer will be their first use in expanded forms in the World Cup.
Automated offside was used by video assistant referees in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. This summer, the technology will be used by the on-field match officials.
Players will be scanned in 3D to produce a volumetric look. That technology will track the players during matches. When a player’s tracking shows that he is offside and receives the ball, the assistant referees will hear “offside, offside,” in their earpieces. They can immediately raise their flags, signaling to the match official to stop play.
The past few years, ARs typically have kept their flags down, even in clear offside situations, to allow the sequence to play out before raising their flags. Being able to immediately raise flags should speed up the game, FIFA’s Sebastian Runge, head of football technology and data, said.
In 2022, the video match officials would receive an alert that a player is offside. They would then validate the call by manually checking where the receiving player was when the ball was kicked against an automated offside line. The on-field officials would then be notified. The process would take a few seconds.
Another new piece will be body cameras used by referees. The cameras will be worn on the ears during the 104 matches. The footage will be available for use by broadcasters and for social media posts. Footage that includes curse words likely will not be shown, Runge said. The referee cams were used during last summer’s Club World Cup.
The last piece is the AI function that functions almost like ChatGPT but uses the language of the sport. Runge showed an example Tuesday that illustrated how a team can look up the passing maps, or specific plays from past matches. A coach can switch viewpoints from player to player to see how each reacted. It was like watching a video game as a representation of an actual match.
Runge said FIFA wanted to develop the technology to be available and easy to use for all of its federations. Runge said that the tracking information previously available could be made sense of only by a few federations.
The presentation of the AI ended with: “Together we move toward a future where football intelligence becomes truly global.”
About the Author
