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FIFA Hopes to Take Human Error Out of the Sport as It Trials Offside Technology at This Week’s Arab Cup

Tracking cameras and software offer immediate animated renderings of whether an offsides call should be made in soccer, one of the most complex and tedious decisions a human referee has to make.Hawk-Eye (animation); Alex Livesey/Getty Images (VAR); FIFA (line simulation); FIFA (waiting on offsides); Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy via Getty Images (Qatar World Cup)

The Arab Cup that kicked off on Tuesday in Qatar is, in many ways, a dress rehearsal for the 2022 World Cup that commences at this time next year. One of the key innovations under trial is what FIFA has billed as its “semi-automated offside technology,” a supplement to the existing Video Assistant Referee system to help with one of the sport’s more vexing rules.

Current uses of VAR to govern offsides calls, as of now, still require human input to draw a line marking where the deepest, non-goalkeeping defensive player is on the pitch. That process is tedious, time-intensive and subject to some human interpretation. The semi-automated system—powered primarily by tracking cameras and AI software—will make that determination in a half-second. If a goal is scored and a player is deemed offsides, that information is relayed from the VAR room to the on-field referee.

“The reason why we call it semi-automated offside because it's still, at the end, the VAR who has to validate and confirm the proposed offside line and the proposed kick point that comes out of the software,” football technology and innovation director Johannes Holzmüller told FIFA's Living Football show. “And then the VAR informs the referee on the pitch about the decision.”FIFA's VAR technology is now spanning the globe after making its World Cup debut in 2018, though the spectators and players are always seemingly impatient awaiting decisions.

Full automation is a particular challenge given the subjective nature of the written offsides rule—IFAB Law 11—which dictates players are only penalized if “involved in active play.”

“Technology today or tomorrow can draw a line, but the assessment of an interference with play or with an opponent remains in a referee’s hands,” added FIFA chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina. “So the involvement of referees in the assessment of the offside remains crucial and final.”

A FIFA spokesperson declined to identify the participating technology companies, saying only that there was not one single provider. But SportTechie has learned that Hawk-Eye’s skeletal tracking system is one of the providers for the Arab Cup matches. (ChyronHego is also developing a tracking system for this FIFA offsides project.) Sony-owned Hawk-Eye uses as many as 12 cameras to track 18 points on each player’s body at 50 frames per second, triangulating that data to create 3D positions. The official offsides rule requires consideration of every body part capable of scoring—i.e. everything but the arms and hands.

Hawk-Eye Innovations had already provided its goal line technology beginning with the 2012 FIFA Club World Cup, but began expanding its capabilities a few years ago when FIFA began soliciting solutions for automating all or part of offside detection. Offsides calls, as of now, require a referee drawing a line marking where the deepest, non-goalkeeping defensive player is on the pitch, a process that is tedious, time-intensive and subject to some human interpretation.

In an August interview, before FIFA revealed its plans for the Arab Cup, Hawk-Eye global commercial director Peter Irwin explained the benefits of the technology his company was developing. “We all know the offside rule isn't the simplest thing—whether you're active or not active, you may be in an offside position but not interfering with play,” Irwin said. “All those things need to be taken into account. But, certainly, we're confident we'll be able to deliver the semi-automatic offside system. It’s there. We are waiting for football to give its seal of approval for it to be used live.”

The three main benefits, Irwin said, are accuracy, consistency and the speed of a verdict. Much as Hawk-Eye’s tool for tennis rarely gets questioned, the company plans to present a similar authoritative view for FIFA, with its camera footage dissolving into an animation.

“So even if it is a millimeter difference, you'll be able to get into the best position to show that, and we'll be able to visualize it in the most accepting way to sell the decision,” he said. Similar work is underway in basketball, and the NFL has implemented Hawk-Eye’s SMART system to synchronize multiple angles.

VAR’s World Cup debut came in 2018. Beyond FIFA’s scope, five regional confederations and 47 national football associations have implemented it for important competitions with, Collina said, another 100 in varying stages of interest and preparation to add it. Part of the FIFA President’s Vision 2020-2023 is to also develop a lighter, more affordable VAR technology. Current offsides reviews in the English Premier League and other circuits commonly take two minutes due to the manual line placement.

“We can say that the number of major mistakes are dramatically reduced but, nevertheless, there are areas where it might be improved and certainly offside is one of them. We are aware that sometimes the process to check a possible offside takes too long,” Collina said, noting that his charges are accepting of the VAR offsides tech. “The referees are really happy to receive a supporter that can prevent them from committing a major mistake.”One of the advantages of the new offsides technology is that a decision can be reached in just a half-second, not minutes.

Incidentally, Hawk-Eye’s work in the realm of offsides detection led not only to its current implementation, but also as a FIFA-certified Electronic Performance and Tracking System. Its EPTS report in Oct. 2019 showed that Hawk-Eye performed “well above” industry standard in almost every area. Both Europe’s governing body, UEFA, and Italy’s top pro league, Serie A, have contracted Hawk-Eye for performance data. The UEFA contract is a three-year deal that began with August’s Super Cup match between Chelsea and Villareal and will include men’s and women’s Champions League matches, Euro Cups and more.

“We're building out our data science team in order to actually understand the kind of insights you can produce from skeletal data,” Irwin said. "Everyone's aware of the insights that’s produced by regular tracking data—which uses center of mass for that—but skeletal is still quite a new space. “

Hawk-Eye’s work in Major League Baseball, where it began powering the Statcast system in 2020, accelerated its work in soccer. “That gave us a greater understanding of not only tracking people or balls, which we do pretty well, particularly the ball side—we’ve done it for 20-odd years—but it's actually that data aggregation and that data output and stuff like that, which is a little bit newer to us,” Irwin said.If this week's trial goes smoothly, semi-automatic offsides technology will likely be implemented for the big stage 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

From its array of cameras, Hawk-Eye can create digital renderings from any vantage point on the pitch, just as it does on the baseball diamond. Hawk-Eye doesn’t track eye movement but does record the direction each player is facing. Using that as a proxy, the Unreal Engine can essentially create 3D point-of-view graphics and replays that have broad use cases for fan engagement. Manchester City announced a new plan to do just that on Tuesday.

“I think what federations and governing bodies are looking at now is, they're seeing the benefits of the system. It's not just a tracking system—once you have this data, Hawk-Eye can build out these end-to-end solutions to drive value across media, across performance, across digital platforms and potentially moving into the betting space as well,” Irwin said. “We’re integrating this into mobile applications to provide that unique view and experience for your Gen Z [audience], so they can basically bridge the gap between esports and real-life broadcasts.”

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