What’s New And To Look For At FIFA Club World Cup? (image-pixabay)
As the FIFA Club World Cup gears up to kick off its 2025 season in just a few days, it’s not just the figures that have changed in the tournament. To make the event more exciting, the football body, had introduced new technologies, including artificial intelligence, to assist the referees. Here are the three major changes the football fans could witness in this season.
Small cameras, tied around the ears of the referee, will now capture the whole match live as it unfolds. The video will then be fed to the ongoing match broadcast, giving the viewers a unique view of goals, saves, crosses, players’ runs and tackles. However, any potentially game-changing moment such as appeals for penalties or disputed calls will be cut down. These features will be available in the six NFL stadiums being used during the tournament – Atlanta, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Miami, East Rutherford, Philadelphia, and Seattle.
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The main objective of the move is to provide the TV viewers a new experience, the chairperson of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina, said.
Apart from this, FIFA had decided to use the assistance of technology in making decisions regarding offside. AI will be used for an “enhanced semi-automatic offside.” The video feed from over 16 cameras will provide the footage, from which it will assess and alert the officials as soon as an offside is noted. Moreover, this implementation is expected to reduce decision-making time and may lead to earlier offside flagging, helping to prevent play from continuing after a clear offside.
This time, the footage of VAR-based offside reviews will now be displayed on big screens inside the stadiums as well.
The third add-on is the new timeout rule for goalkeepers in the tournament. FIFA had asked referees to clamp down on glove men who take too long on the ball. As per the rule, the keepers won’t be able to hold onto the ball for longer than six seconds. A warning sign will be given at the fifth second, after which, counted down by their hands, the ball should be released before a total of eight seconds.
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If failed to do so, the opposition team will be given a corner kick, as opposed to an indirect free kick, which was previously given.
