Automated Offside Technology is the next leap forward in officiating, designed to speed up and improve the accuracy of one of football’s most difficult calls. Building on the infrastructure of VAR, Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT) was officially introduced by FIFA at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. This system uses a combination of specialized cameras and AI to make the determination of offside almost instantaneous and incredibly precise.

The main problem this technology solves is the inherent difficulty, delay, and potential for error in human-judged offside calls. An assistant referee must simultaneously watch the ball being kicked and the position of the second-to-last defender and the attacking player—a physically impossible task to do perfectly every time. Even with traditional VAR, manually placing offside lines on a screen takes time and can be subject to the operator’s interpretation of where a player’s body part is, leading to frustrating delays and debates about “armpits” and “toenails.”

Automated offside technology makes the sporting world better by providing a faster, more consistent, and accurate decision. The system uses 12 dedicated tracking cameras mounted underneath the stadium roof to track the ball and up to 29 data points on each individual player, 50 times per second, calculating their exact position on the pitch. When an offside call is potentially triggered, the system automatically provides an alert and a 3D animation to the VAR team. This drastically reduces the time taken to review calls, improving the flow of the game and providing clear, generated visualizations for fans on TV and in the stadium.

The proof of its improvement is in the speed and clarity of decisions. During its debut at the 2022 World Cup, the time required to make an offside decision was significantly reduced, from an average of 70 seconds with manual VAR lines to roughly 20-25 seconds with the semi-automated system. The 3D animations provided to broadcasters offered definitive proof that was easy for fans to understand, replacing the often confusing 2D lines drawn on a 2D image. The technology eliminates the “margin of error” inherent in manual line placement.