Qatar 2022 will be the first FIFA men's World Cup to use semi-automated offside technology in an effort to improve the speed and accuracy of decisions.
The technology - successfully tested at the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup and at last year's FIFA Club World Cup - will see video match officials receive offside alerts, with decisions validated manually before being communicated to the on-field referee.
Communication with fans inside stadiums will also be improved with a 3D animation displayed on big screens, and to television viewers at home, showing how the offside decision was reached.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said: "Semi-automated offside technology is an evolution of the VAR systems that have been implemented across the world.
"This technology is the culmination of three years of dedicated research and testing to provide the very best for the teams, players and fans who will be heading to Qatar later this year.
"FIFA is committed to harnessing technology to improve the game of football at all levels, and the use of semi-automated offside technology at the FIFA World Cup in 2022 is the clearest possible evidence."
How semi-automated offside technology works
The new technology uses 12 dedicated tracking cameras mounted underneath the roof of the stadium to track the ball and up to 29 data points of each individual player, 50 times per second, calculating their exact position on the pitch.
The adidas Al Rihla official World Cup match ball provides a further vital element for the detection of tight offside incidents as an inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor will be placed inside the ball.
This sensor, positioned in the centre of the ball, sends ball data to the video operation room 500 times per second, allowing a very precise detection of the kick point.
By combining limb-tracking and ball-tracking data and applying artificial intelligence, the new technology provides an automated offside alert to the video match officials inside the video operation room whenever the ball is received by an attacker who was in an offside position at the moment the ball was played by a team-mate.
Before informing the on-field referee, the video match officials validate the proposed decision by manually checking the automatically selected kick point and the automatically created offside line, which is based on the calculated positions of the players' limbs. This process happens within a few seconds and means offside decisions can be made faster and more accurately.
After the decision has been confirmed by the video match officials and the referee on the pitch, the exact same positional data points that were used to make the decision are then generated into a 3D animation that perfectly details the position of the players' limbs at the moment the ball was played.
This 3D animation, which will always show the best possible perspectives for an offside situation, will then be shown on the giant screens in the stadium and will also be made available to FIFA's broadcast partners to inform all spectators in the clearest possible way.
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