The International Football Association Board (IFAB) says semi-automated VAR offside technology is on track to be implemented at the World Cup in Qatar later this year.
Developed by Fifa, the technology is designed to cut offside decision making down to just three or four seconds by providing VAR with faster and more accurate information.
The system uses 12 bespoke cameras installed under the stadium roof rather than standard television cameras, as is currently the case. It enables a much more accurate assessment of when a pass has been played, and tracks 29 data points on the players to create an AI model of the offside situation.
An alert will be sent automatically if a player is an an offside position, and it is then the VAR’s job to determine whether the player is active and/or having an impact on play. Replays will also be available for broadcasters and stadium screens within 25 seconds.
Testing has been carried out at various Fifa competitions over the last two years and the technology was used “live” for the first time at the Club World Cup in February.
“It looks very good and very promising,” Fifa president Gianni Infantino told a news conference on Monday.
“Our experts are looking into [the trials] before we take a decision on whether it will be used for the World Cup or not.”
Pierluigi Collina, Fifa’s head of refereeing, added: “My personal opinion is that I’m very confident we can go ahead with this. We want to achieve accuracy, quicker decisions, also more accepted decisions. We have seen in matches where the semi-automated offside was implemented these objectives were achieved.
“We are considering that a very marginal offside is not that relevant to be punished in modern football. So we are running this experiment. Unfortunately the competitions where these trials were allowed were suspended or abandoned for almost two years due to the pandemic.
“So now we have tests going on in [youth football] in the Netherlands, in Italy and in Sweden and certainly we will come to conclusions once we have evidence and figures from these trials.”
If all goes well, the Premier League and other major leagues are reportedly hoping to introduce the technology at the start of the 2023/24 season.
The IFAB also confirmed it would hold trials to limit time-wasting, with the ball generally in play for just 54 minutes of the 90 at the moment.