Twelve cameras and each of them focuses on the joints of the body and the decision comes out in a maximum of 50 seconds. Each of the cameras has a sensor that is connected to the ball chip.These are the innovations of the semi-automatic offside position that will try to avoid human error in the 64 matches of the World Cup in Qatar. The head of the FIFA Referee Committee, Pierluixhi Kolina, says that VAR decisions on offside positions will be faster and more accurate in this tournament after the introduction of the new technology developed by FIFA 3 years ago.
“This gives us the opportunity to be faster and more accurate in terms of offside decisions,” said the former Italian referee during a press conference before the start of the World Cup.
“Just to be fair, being faster doesn’t mean we’re going to have instant appreciation for the offside position. It will be a shorter time than now of course, but we cannot have an answer in 1 second or practically directly. One thing I want to underline is that the final decision will always rest with the match referees in VAR and his assistant and on the field of play the referee. Referees have been instructed to red card anything that endangers the health of another player, including elbows to the face, raised heels and high feet. Here are the best players in the world. It would be a shame if some of these players could not play due to injury caused by the opposition.
He also confirmed the instruction for referees to be “generous” with extra time: “There is nothing new. In Russia, it was quite normal for the fourth referee to show 7, 8 or 9 extra minutes on his scoreboard”, he concluded.