Why 2022 World Cup ball is historic
Argentina's Lionel Messi (left) and Venezuela's Miguel Navarro vie for the ball during their South American qualification match for the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 at La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires on March 25, 2022.
What you need to know:
- With the new offside technology, footballs will have sensors that will work with 12 cameras to make decisions on whether players are offside
- News of the incorporation of the new technology has received mixed reactions in Kenya
- Former Harambee Stars striker Allan Wanga, who is the director of sports at Kakamega County, feels it is fine for football to move with the times
The ball that will be kicked about during this year’s World Cup will not be your ordinary football after Friday’s announcement that Fifa will use a semi-automated system to make offside decisions.
Rather, it will be a ball with a sensor in it. This will be the first time sensor data from a World Cup ball will be used in decision making.
Goal-line technology, first used in the 2014 World Cup, has been relying on high-speed cameras for making decisions on whether the ball has crossed the line or not. The cameras capture the ball from various angles and can thus tell its position relative to the goal-line and whether the ball has fully crossed the line.
“We have 14 cameras; seven cameras on each goal-mouth,” says a video on fifa.com explaining the technology. “The camera-based decision comes on the referee’s watch … and information is transmitted within one second.”
With the new offside technology, footballs will have sensors that will work with 12 cameras to make decisions on whether players are offside.
“In addition to a sensor in the middle of the ball, which sends data 500 times a second to determine the exact kick-point, 12 dedicated multi-tracking cameras that are ‘100 percent synchronised’ will be mounted on the roof of each stadium to track the ball and 29 points on each player, sending data 50 times per second to calculate their exact position on the pitch,” reports the BBC.
“Any player in an offside position will trigger an alert in the video assistant referee (VAR) booth that can be relayed to the on-pitch referee,” it adds.
News of the incorporation of the new technology has received mixed reactions in Kenya. According to GMT Otieno of the Kenya Referees Association, this is a step in the wrong direction.
“I have been opposed to football matches being mechanised. Even when this VAR was introduced, I was against it. I even wrote to Fifa about it and said football should be played naturally. Let the mistakes done be done,” he told Nation Sport.
“What we should avoid is the deliberate mistakes like the ‘Hand of God’ of (Diego) Maradona in 1986. Any other natural fouls or mistakes should be treated as natural mistakes. They are a part of the game and that is the kind of enjoyment the fans want,” added Otieno, a founder member of the Sports Disputes Tribunal.
Given the costs that come with such technology, most developing countries will take long before adopting it, and Otieno feels there is no much difference because “people have not stopped enjoying football”.
“We are far from developing those technologies because we don’t have the relevant facilities,” he said.
“No African country has adopted the offside technology; absolutely none. Have they stopped playing football? No. So, if that’s the case, this issue of technology should totally be removed. Let football be played naturally with all the mistakes that have been there before,” said Otieno.
But former Harambee Stars striker Allan Wanga, who is the director of sports at Kakamega County, feels it is fine for football to move with the times.
“We have seen wrong decisions made: offside goals awarded, offside cases being played on, and such,” he said. “Let’s see how the World Cup experience will be. But I think it’s a good move. It’s good for the game.”
After introducing goal-line technology in 2014, Fifa brought video-assisted refereeing in the 2018 World Cup. The 2022 edition will now have one more element of technology to arbitrate what has been a big source of controversy in matches.
The offside rule was introduced to make teams vie for the ball and not send players camping at an opponent’s goal and wait for the ball for a chance to score. Wanga believes the addition of technology in the game is unstoppable.
“As time goes by, football keeps developing and those who played in past years will feel like football is getting boring; like a PlayStation where everything is controlled. But there is nothing you can do about it,” he said.
“I heard (former Arsenal coach Arsène) Wenger say that football is supposed to be a game where, if you lose, you don’t have an excuse about offside or referee favouritism or anything,” added Wanga, who made 44 appearances for Kenya.
He went on: “Where are headed, a game will be ending and if you lose, you do not have any questions about the referee’s decisions.”
