“Referee Camera”: A New Technology to Enhance Excitement in the Club World Cup
Officials from FIFA announced Wednesday that referees at the Club World Cup, which kicks off this weekend, will be equipped with a small camera mounted in their earpieces capable of generating footage from their perspective.
The live images will be broadcast via a dedicated 5G network from the referee to the match production team, providing unique angles for goals and saves, along with live videos and close sounds, except for penalty decisions or other controversial moments from the new camera’s perspective.
In a statement, FIFA’s head of refereeing, Pierluigi Collina, said: “The International Football Association Board, which sets the rules of the game, has allowed this technology to be tested, with the aim of providing a new experience for television viewers.”
Collina added, “Let’s implement things step by step; for now, this is an experiment. We need to innovate something new, and the simpler it is, the better. So, controversial footage might be part of a later stage in the future; perhaps we will do it, perhaps we won’t.”
According to Johannes Holzmüller, FIFA’s Director of Innovation, the live broadcast will be available only in the six stadiums approved for the tournament in the American football league.
The tournament will also feature the use of the “enhanced semi-automated offside technology,” which will rely on 16 cameras connected to artificial intelligence and algorithms that will send a voice message to the assistant referees when a player touches the ball while in an offside position.
