Qatar 2022, This year’s World Cup is drawing near and while the qualified teams are getting ready to leave everything on the field during the greatest celebration of the king of sports on the planet, the organizing committee of the FIFA is also working to move away from a controversy that has haunted the institution since its implementation: the VAR (Video Assistant Referee).
88 days from November 20, 2022, that is, before the match between Qatar y Ecuador that will kick off the competition, the UEFA is preparing a tool that complements the technology of the WAS and that is capable of determining advanced positions semi-automatically.
SAOT, FIFA’s response to VAR detractors
Since the WAS is not a saint of the devotion of the vast majority of football enthusiasts -and to the FIFA It was already clear to him – a technology that has been in the works since 2020 will finally be implemented. This system is named Semi-automated Offside Technology System (SAOTfor its acronym in English) and what it does is quite simple but effective: it is able to determine if a player is in an advanced position in a play where he faces the opponent’s goal.
In this way, the organization hopes to try to solve the deficiencies that the system still has. WAS in the execution of human resources.
How does the VAR SAOT work for the Qatar 2022 World Cup?
According to what the report from UEFAthe SAOT “uses specialized cameras to track 29 body points per player, allowing VAR teams to quickly and accurately determine offside situations”. The system was tested for the first time in the European Super Cup match in which they played the Real Madrid and the Eintracht Frankfurt.
The tool sends about 50 shots per second of each of the players on the field in order to more accurately analyze those involved in questionable plays. In this way, these situations can be resolved in no more than 25 seconds. Besides, the technology of extremity detection that it contains allows to create 3D representations of the skeleton of each soccer player during the match in real time.
In this way, the referees who are in charge of the VAR in the special room will be able to review the actions of the match from a new angle. In order to be able to deploy it during Qatar 2022, a total of 188 test controls were carried out since 2020 including matches of the UEFA Champions League of last season, the knockout stage of the UEFA Women’s Champions League and the complete final phase of the UEFA Women’s Euro Cup.
Also, the SAOT will continue to be tested during the group stage of the Champions League 2022-2023 which will start on September 7. It is then expected that such a system will be used together with the WAS during the World Cup that begins on November 20.
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