Sebastian Runge, Head of Football Technology at FIFA
Doha: Qatar made history with the sparkling opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2022 at the Al Bayt Stadium, yesterday. As the first Arab country to host the World Cup, Qatar is ensuring an experience like no other for fans and players alike with various technological innovations discussed experts during an event, recently.
Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council (QRDI) organised a webinar entitled ‘Innovation in Action: What technological innovations can fans expect at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022?’. It focused on innovations and football technology which will be experienced at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
Sebastian Runge, Head of Football Technology at FIFA discussed FIFA’s implementation of various innovative technologies to improve the football experience for fans both on and off the pitch. He explained how FIFA drives innovation in football, starting with understanding the needs of players, coaches and referee to implementation of key projects such as Video Assistant Referee (VAR), Goal-Line Technology (GLT) and Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems (EPTS).
Runge said, “Our mission is to harness technology to improve the game. FIFA works in four-year cycle, from World Cup to World Cup and we have to decide how we want to impact the game with technology or innovation. We try to speak to players, coaches, fans, media to better understand what is really impacting them when they attend a FIFA competition. In the exploration phase we are looking at the industry and we assess the quality of these technologies. We are working with a lot of universities, research institutes to better understand how good those technologies are.”
The football technology team at FIFA are working on solving problems in football by testing and implementing new technologies to enhance the football experience of players and fans on and off the pitch.
“Our journey has been from Goal-Line Technology back in Brazil in 2014 for the first time over to Russia where we saw the introduction of Video Assistant Referee technology to 2022 Qatar World Cup and for the first time, we will see the introduction of Semi-Assistant Offside technology. In lot of industries data driven positions is getting important - algorithm, machine learning, AI is playing a big part in all of this,” he added.
Speaking about the Semi-Assistant Offside technology which will be witnessed for the first time in Qatar, he said "we are entering the world of data driven decisions. Different technologies which have been used for some times have been combined."
The technology helps to make faster, more accurate and reproducible offside decisions. 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 29 collected data points include all limbs and extremities that are relevant for making offside calls.
Thousands of fans celebrated the World Cup inauguration eve all across the country with Qatar ready to deliver the promise of staging the best-ever edition of the tournament. Qatar has made widespread preparations to host the greatest show on earth since winning the right to host the mega event in 2010, completing state-of-the-art infrastructure with an unprecedented pace.
