Chelsea are set to become the first Premier League side to be involved with the trial of a ‘robot referee’ at FIFA’s Club World Cup.
The west London team will become the first British club to sample the technology at the Club World Cup, which kicks off on Thursday in Abu Dhabi.
The ‘robot referee’ makes use of 12 cameras in the roof of the stadium which tracks the movement of all the players and the ball.
In a bid to end the delays with video assistant referees (VAR), the technology also aims to make automatic offside decisions within half a second.
“When the ball is played, the real-time AI software can send a signal automatically to the VAR,” FIFA’s football technology and innovation director Johannes Holzmuller said of the system in November.
“We will have a committed assistant VAR who can process the offside data and help determine if the player deemed to be offside was active and interfering with play, so they can swiftly validate and confirm the decision.”
He added: “However, we are only at the beginning of this development journey and possible use cases need to be tested thoroughly to assess the capabilities with a view to eventual implementation.”
If the trials prove to be successful, FIFA plan to implement the ‘robot referee’ technology at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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