Some breaking news from the Premier League this afternoon, as clubs have agreed to implement Semi-Automated Offside Technology from next season.
The new technology – used successfully at the Qatar World Cup and UEFA Champions League – will be used after one of the Autumn international breaks, and “will provide quicker and consistent placement of the virtual offside line.”
A Premier League statement said: ‘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.’
A good move from the Premier League to finally introduce this new technology. It should have been implemented sooner but it’s a step in the right direction.
🚨 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟: Premier League clubs have agreed to the introduction of Semi-Automated Offside Technology for next season.
(Source: @PremierLeague) pic.twitter.com/SGWKVMFQct
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The whole offside thing has become a farce.
It reminds me of the old joke about two seven year old lads talking at school.
“My dad’s a physicist. He can measure stuff down to the nearest thousandth of a millimeter”
Geordie replies ” that’s wouldn’t be good enough where my dad works. He’s a welder in the shipyard, his work has to be bang on!”
VAR is trying to make decisions down to millimeters, when their equipment just isn’t capable of that kind of accuracy.
Offsides should be either fully automated or scrapped.
First, change the ridiculous offside rule so that the point of reference for the offside decision is the centre of the chest.
Players often wear GPS tracker vests so that their distance covered can be monitored.
Fit the vest with a sensor (located at the centre of the chest) and equip all stadia with a dozen or so receivers on each side of the pitch allowing player position to be triangulated at any point in time. The more receivers, the more accurate the measurement.
This kind of technology is already in use in industry, military etc, and existing software could calculate the position of each player down to millimeters.
Checking an offside decision would involve scrolling through a video to the point when the ball is kicked, pressing a button and the software would IMMEDIATELY display which players were where at that point in time.
Taking it a step forward, a window comes up andt the footage is scrolled frame by frame with the relative distance of the 2 players from the goal line updated for each frame.
If the tech fails for any reason it’s back to eyeballs.
Of course the ideal solution would be to scrap the offside rule. Each team has 11 players and if Howe decided to have Isak camp out on the opposition penalty spot, it is the oppositions responsibility to decide how they deal with it.
Instead of taking minutes it would take a few seconds at most.
Jordi Plato(Quote)