Eye on the ball & on players, tech takes centre stage at FIFA World Cup

From video assistant referees to match ball that sends signals to FIFA officials

Cristiano Ronaldo has been at the centre of the footballing pitch and the footballing world for the past two weeks now. On Monday night, he was under the spotlight again, but not in the same way he's been over the past two decades. Even as the Portuguese team gathered around Ronaldo to celebrate its first goal, the referee awarded the goal to Bruno Fernandes, whose cross Ronaldo seemed to have headed home. Later, Adidas, the company that made the ball, and FIFA confirmed that Ronaldo didn’t make any contact with the ball.

This wasn’t the only instance when technology was used by officials in a game.

People officiating the matches have relied on tech for the minutest details of the game. Qatar 2022 may be the first World Cup where the difference between real and artificial intelligence (AI) has blurred.

Video Assistant Referees (VAR)

One man’s cheer is another man’s jeer. This is more often the norm during a football match. And so it has been at the World Cup. The most important calls came during Saudi Arabia’s upset of Argentina, when three goals from Argentina were deemed offside by the VAR.

The technology was at its impressive best while reviewing Lionel Messi’s goal against Saudi. A 3D digital mannequin of the Argentine captain showed him disappearing from the referee’s screen, and then his legs and finally a part of his torso swaying offside.

The technology was first used in Russia 2018 but has been developed to a point where cameras in the stadium can track 29 data points across a player’s body. The data points (limbs, hands, shoulders etc) are fed into a system that helps officials take calls on offsides and penalties.

Sensor soccer ball

Al-Rihla, the official match ball of the tournament, made by Adidas, has motion sensors inside. It is because of these sensors that the officials were able to deem that Ronaldo didn’t touch the ball as it made its way into the Uruguayan net. The company said that the match ball reports data location on the ball 500 times per second. The ball was tested at the FIFA Club World Cup in 2021.

Fifa+ app and augmented reality

The Fifa+ app presents an altogether different game. People inside the stadium can use the augmented reality mask to keep an eye on the players’ heat map on the pitch, watch the replays being shown to viewers tuned into the game at home, and get an overlay of all the live stats from the game.

Cameras and algorithm

The officials in Doha have stepped up security across the country with an influx of visitors expected for the latter stages of the tournament.

Officials told AFP in August that command-and-control centres rely on over 15,000 cameras to track people’s movements throughout games. At Lusail Stadium, the venue for the finals, facial recognition technology will be used to track fans, according to Al Jazeera, sparking privacy concerns.

Officials have also said that algorithms will be used to avoid stampedes since this is the first time the country is managing a tournament of such magnitude.