The tech behind World Cup offside calls is coming to every level of the game

What the big tournaments proved

Semi-automated offside technology is the headline case. Twelve dedicated cameras track the ball and up to 29 data points on each player, 50 times a second, while a sensor inside the ball sends data 500 times a second. FIFA trialled the system live at the FIFA Arab Cup 2021 and the FIFA Club World Cup 2021. During tests, the average VAR offside check fell from 70 seconds to 25 seconds, according to FIFA's Director of Football Technology and Innovation, Johannes Holzmüller. In our team's previous work at FIFA, semi-automated offside cut offside errors from 15% to under 1%. Anyone who's argued with a referee will like that number.

For everyone else, the lesson isn't really about offside. It's that computers can now see a match well enough to measure position, speed and shape without a human coding every frame. Once that works at the top, cost is the only barrier to it working everywhere else, and that barrier is falling.

Buying the camera is the easy bit now. Finding someone who knows what to ask of it is harder.

How the cost came down

FIFA saw this coming. In 2021 it set up a test of player tracking data generated from broadcast footage, and the benefits it listed were no on-site operations in stadiums, a lower budget for data generation from existing resources and the potential to generate data from historic footage. I'd pay particular attention to that last one, because it could one day turn old match video into usable data. FIFA presented the work as part of the democratisation of football technologies.

Hardware has followed. As far back as 2021, Veo's AI camera retailed for $800 with a $1,200 annual subscription and was used by some 5,000 clubs. Its Veo Go product now captures matches using two iPhones, and Veo's AI then tags key moments after the game. Costs and features will keep changing, but the direction is clear. Automatic filming, event tagging and basic tracking are within reach of clubs that have never employed a data scientist, so for clubs outside the top flight the question has shifted from whether they can afford tracking to whether they're ready to use it.

Where it helps below the top flight

Start with the player, because tracking turns opinion into evidence: sprints, distances covered and positions when out of possession. Academies can show development across seasons as well as across matches. Scouts can compare players from leagues that no data company covers, and coaches can review team shape with clips linked to the moments that matter. Player welfare gains too, since load data helps staff spot fatigue before it turns into injury, which matters most where squads are thin.

There's a commercial upside as well. A club that can show a buying club or a sponsor credible data about its players and matches looks more professional than one that can't. Tracking data could also feed fan-facing content and digital activations, and knowing which of those your fans actually value tells you what to build first. The risk is buying tools without the people or the questions to use them, and technology without a workflow quickly becomes another unused subscription.