Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The English first-tier football league, the Premier League, will introduce Semi-Automated Offside Technology in the 2024/2025 season.
At a Premier League Shareholders’ meeting on Thursday, all clubs unanimously agreed to introduce the new offside technology that will help eliminate worrying offside calls.
In football, an offside occurs if a player is closer to the opponent’s goal line than both the ball and the second-to-last defender. Usually, the goalkeeper is the last defender. It could also occur if the attacker’s head, body, or feet, is in the opponent’s half of the field but not including the halfway line.
A statement from the Premier League read: “At a Premier League Shareholders’ meeting today, clubs unanimously agreed to the introduction of Semi-Automated Offside Technology.
“The new system will be used for the first time in the Premier League next season, and it is anticipated the technology will be ready to be introduced after one of the Autumn international breaks.
“The technology will provide quicker and consistent placement of the virtual offside line, based on optical player tracking, and will produce high-quality broadcast graphics to ensure an enhanced in-stadium and broadcast experience for supporters.”
The Premier League is set to use the same cameras and software which is already utilised by the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) in the Champions League.
The technology has already been in effect in the European competition, which has been used to great success to find swift decisions on offside.
However, the technology differs from that used by FIFA in international tournaments, where a match ball has a chip inserted in it to provide a wide array of information.
The introduction will also help reduce the amount of work done by Video Assistant Referees (VAR). Data showed that the league spends on average 30 seconds per decision to speed up VAR calls, which can sometimes take an age to decide whether a player is offside or not.
One of the main criticisms of VAR is the length it can take to come to a decision, especially after a goal has been scored, and suppressing any chance to celebrate.
