The Premier League will debut a new video assistant referee system incorporating semi-automatic offside technology (SAOT) that it believes would offer the best refereeing setup in the world.
Every Premier League field will have 28 computer vision cameras installed by Genius Sports, which designed the AI-powered system. The startup claims it can deliver VAR rulings in seconds and cut top-flight matches by minutes.
VAR delays plagued the Premier League last season, with officials needing 5min 37sec to disallow a West Ham goal against Aston Villa in March. The average game lasted approximately 102 minutes due to 64 seconds of VAR referrals.
In February, Premier League chief football officer Tony Scholes conceded that VAR delays were ruining matches for spectators and suggested SAOT.
Genius Sports won the SAOT contract over Premier League data partner Hawk-Eye after a tough bidding procedure.
During testing at many Premier League and Champions League games last season, match officials’ SAOT made decisions in seconds, reducing the average waiting time to 30 seconds, according to Genius.
Genius’s computer vision cameras record 10,000 surface data points for each player and the ball, allowing it to rapidly generate “offside walls” for VAR and match officials and provide 3D player images for TV viewers.
While the intricacies are still being worked out, stadiums might show precise player images with distinct offside lines, improving fans’ match-day experience.
The Premier League believes billions of data points will give them the most advanced officiating system in sports, ensuring precise offside calls.
The new system won’t be deployed until after the international break next month since it takes time to install cameras and other technologies in grounds.
With its contract ending next summer, Hawk-Eye will operate Premier League goalline technology for at least one more season.
In addition to delays, the Premier League had some high-profile offside blunders last season.
In February, VAR missed a Brentford player’s offside in a goal at Arsenal, and the same day manually drawn lines were placed on the wrong Crystal Palace defender, disallowing a Brighton score.
SAOT should prevent such mistakes, but it wouldn’t prevent the October mistake that led to a Liverpool goal being wrongly ruled out for offside at Tottenham due to poor official communication.
Uefa introduced SAOT for 2022-23 Champions League. Fifa employed it for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup.
