Football has changed a lot over the years in the way it’s played and watched but as technology has improved significantly over the last decade so has the use of it in football. More things have been added and changed to help the players and the referees and this has come with its positives and its negatives as some of these changes have been met with controversial decisions.
Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems
Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems, also known as EPTS, is wearable technology with a camera that can track player movements as well as the ball’s movements. It can be used along with other devices such as a heart rate monitor so they can fully check a player’s health and level of performance. This is why players now are better and healthier and football is played at a higher level. This explains why on Boylesports football the odds on leagues like the Premier League, for example, are so close, because everyone has got better over time.
Smart Ball
The smart ball was created by Cairos and Adidas and it is mainly used in Adidas balls for big tournaments like the World Cup in 2014 etc. The ball has an NFC chip inside of it (a sensor) and they use a network of receivers around the pitch to track the movement and location of the ball. This is mainly used to help with goal-line technology as the ball sends a signal to the referee’s wristwatch when the ball has completely passed the line. The system has worked faulty well with very few major mishaps.
Goal Line Technology
Goal Line tech was another major change that debuted at the World Cup in 2014. This and the Smart Ball go hand and hand with each other and have been changed and more outwardly used for the 2018 World Cup and onwards.
To get it to work it used 14 cameras with up to 500 frames and a second which send the images to an image processing system. If the ball fully crosses the line the camera records this and uses the ball’s 3D coordinates to send a signal to the referee’s watch. As we said earlier, this and the smart ball are very well received and have had a lot of thorough checks to make sure they work properly. Some errors skip through but it is very rare. One example was a game of Premier League football, Sheffield United vs Aston Villa, where Aston Villa were the Villains when a Goal Line technology decision was wrong and caused Sheffield United to get relegated, Aston Villa stayed up because of this, which changed the league for years to come.
Video Assistant Referee (VAR)
At the 2018 World Cup, a brand new type of football technology was debuted named VAR. The main idea behind the design was to identify the mistakes made on the pitch and almost give a second chance to a decision.
The VAR crew sit in a room watching the game and help the referee make decisions. The crew consists of the main video assistant referee, four replay operators and three helpers. They have access to 33 cameras around the stadium and two exclusive offside cameras that are shown on a monitor at the side of a pitch.
The VAR will only intervene if a decision could affect the match’s outcome, so if a clear and obvious error is missed like a penalty or a red card, the VAR will help the on-field official.
VAR is the most controversial of the new technological advances, as a lot of decisions are wrong and now they see that the referees are incompetent and making mistakes that VAR was brought to help with.
In Summary
The technological advantages of football do outweigh the negative aspects, football will improve if technology is added smartly and fairly. If the bad points are ironed out more trust is put back into the referees and fewer mistakes are made then I can see football only getting better.
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