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The Education City Stadium in Doha
Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters
The world football association Fifa is testing a technology for semi-automatic offside detection in the coming days.
According to Fifa, the technology will be used from Tuesday at the Arab Cup (November 30 to December 18) in Qatar and support the referee with the help of artificial intelligence in deciding whether a player is offside or not.
It could possibly be used in the same place at the World Cup next year.
"Depending on how the tests go," said Fifa in response to a request from SPIEGEL.
"There is still a little time left before the World Cup."
According to a FIFA announcement, the head of the Fifa referee commission Pierluigi Collina called the upcoming trial at the Arab Cup "the most important one so far" for the new technology.
Cameras under the stadium roof send real-time data to the video assistant, who can immediately check the information and pass it on to the referee.
Technology is very useful when making decisions on the pitch, said Collina: "In an offside position, the decision is made after not only the position of the players but also their participation in the movement has been analyzed." The decision itself - whether offside or whether active or passive - but remain "in the hands of the referee," explained Collina.
To support its referees, the world association had already introduced a number of technical innovations at previous tournaments.
Fifa has been using goal-line technology since the 2014 World Cup and video assistants since the 2018 World Cup.
The latter could get help with the semi-automatic offside detection.
16 teams from the Arab world play in the Arab Cup.
Play will also take place in some of the stadiums in which the World Cup is to take place next year (November 21 to December 18, 2022).
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