With VAR seemingly the centre of every modern football debate, next summer’s European Championship may help alleviate a little of the tension surrounding the technology.
That’s because the new Euro 2024 ball has recently released and, beyond being just another must-have for football collectors, it will provide officials with significant help in Germany next year.
adidas’ new ball contains cutting-edge technology and should help reduce the time it takes for VAR officials to make offside decisions.
But just how does this technology work in practice? Let’s take a look.
The ‘Fussballliebe’ will be next summer’s Euro 2024 ball and has been made by adidas to help make life easier for officials. It should help the VAR make quicker offside decisions, ultimately reducing those agonising waits following a tight offside call.
The ball contains a chip that detects when a player has made contact with it, sending real-time data to officials and allowing them to pinpoint exactly when a pass has been made.
This should allow officials to make quicker offside decisions as they have more data at their disposal in a shorter timeframe, hopefully speeding up proceedings if implemented properly.
The sensor in the ball can send data to officials 500 times a second, with adidas claiming that it should now take an average of just 25 seconds to decide whether something was offside or onside.
UEFA have also suggested that the technology should speed up handball and penalty decisions. Despite the fact that the ball cannot detect exactly where on a player’s body it touched, it should still help officials make judgement calls when teamed with the 3D images they normally receive.
Speaking about the ‘Fussballliebe’, UEFA stated: “Combining player position data with artificial intelligence (AI), the innovation contributes to UEFA’s semi-automated offside technology and will be key to supporting faster in-match decisions.
“The technology can also help VAR officials to identify every individual touch of the ball, further reducing time spent resolving handball and penalty incidents.”
UEFA already use semi-automated offsides in European competitions such as the Champions League, however, the new Euro 2024 ball should make this process even more accurate as it can exactly pinpoint when the ball is played.
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