Football or as some people may call it soccer is one of the biggest sports in the world if not the biggest, its personally my favorite sport to play and watch, its popularity has been increasing nonstop to attract more and more football fans from all over the world, the beautiful game has had its share of being the main event and the main topic that everybody talks about, especially now with 7 days left for the biggest football tournament to start, the World cup, the world cup is the most watched sport event in history as it happens once every four years, it’s not something usual, its rare, and every football fan anticipates this moment to finally arrive.
But before talking more about the world cup, a lot of controversy has happened throughout history in football due to refereeing mistakes, and from a football fan point of view it hurts a lot to see your team which has given it his all to lose to a simple refereeing mistake, what did that lead to? It led to the use of AI in football.
AI is basically The application of computers to do tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence, such as visual perception, natural language understanding, and decision-making.
How was AI used in football?
A lot of football fans were complaining about the mistakes done from the referees on different occasions, this led the International Federation of Association Football (fifa) to work and develop a system called VAR (video assistance referee), VAR was firstly introduced and put into action in 2016, so about 6 years ago, since then it has developed a lot and became more accurate than before, but is it accurate enough?
Usually the referee is responsible for most of the decisions done on the football field, however there are some occasions where VAR interferes and its usually when there is a serious missed incident by the referee or when there is a match changing decision that was falsely took.
One of the most basic roles of AI in football is offering referees the third eye. The Goal Line and Video Assistant Referee are the two advanced technologies that sharpen the game with AI. These methodologies help referees to make the right decisions during matches.
Currently there is a human referee that monitors the VAR, however in the future there will be no need for a human referee to monitor the screens, Instead, using deep learning technology software would automatically detect for example when a foul has occurred in real time and alert the referee instantly when a player should be given a red card.
The most recent use of AI in football was the automated offside technology that will be used in the upcoming world cup as well as the goal line checking system which sends an automated message to the referee indicating whether the all crossed the line or not.
These kinds of technologies have increased the accuracy of making a better decision and has decreased the number of mistakes made during matches by referees, but I think that there is still room for more development.
Some people may argue that these new developed technologies has killed the suspense and the real enjoyment of the game, before introducing these technologies mistakes gave people something to argue about, the result wasn’t always the same, there was more suspense when the referee made his decision. It wasn’t always right. It was an enjoyment and a curse at the same time. What do you think?
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While the use of technology in aiding the referees will definitely prevent numerous mistakes, I feel like in the case of sports human error is just a part of the game. After all, referee mistakes can cause major emotions and lead to the creation of parts of footballing culture – for example, the infamous 2009 Champions League Semifinal between Chelsea and Barcelona. VAR has already prevented some sensations in World Football – probably most notably, it stopped Iran from kicking Spain out of the 2018 World Cup in the Group Stage.
As a football fan, I do not like where the situation is going – though the game might be unfair due to referee mistakes, it undoubtedly causes way more emotions that way. And, we won’t have any more newsbreakers that embed themselves in football culture like that aforementioned Barcelona – Chelsea game.