Premier League announces new offside technology will be used next season
The Premier League has announced that semi-automatic offside technology (SAOT) will be used from next season.
In a statement announced on Thursday afternoon, the Premier League revealed how all 20 clubs have agreed to implement new technology to help decide what is and is not offside.
A statement read: “At today's Premier League shareholders meeting, clubs unanimously agreed to the introduction of semi-automatic offside technology.
“The new system will be used for the first time in the Premier League next season and it is anticipated that the technology will be ready to be introduced after one of the autumn international breaks.
“The technology will provide faster and more consistent placement of the virtual offside line, based on optical player tracking, and produce high-quality broadcast graphics to ensure an enhanced in-stadium and broadcast experience for fans. “.
The Premier League will use the same cameras and software that UEFA uses in the Champions League.
The technology has already been in force in European competition, which has been used with great success to find quick offside decisions.
FIFA led the way in terms of the use of SAOT, where it was tested as early as 2021 in the Arab Cup and the Club World Cup before being used in the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Women's World Cup.
The Premier League hopes to save an average of 30 seconds per decision to speed up VAR calls, which can sometimes take forever to decide whether a player is offside or not.
One of the main criticisms of VAR is the time it can take to make a decision, especially after a goal has been scored, thus eliminating any chance of celebrating.
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By reducing the time to find a decision as quickly and accurately as possible, the hope is that the entire game can run much more smoothly.
There is also hope that it will put an end to situations where play continues despite a possible offside before resuming after several phases of play.
Assistant referees have been told to keep the flag down in such scenarios, but new technology will provide them with a voice in their headset that will immediately tell them whether a player is offside or not.
After VAR was introduced into the Premier League in 2019, referees had to manually calibrate offsides.
It involves freezing the exact moment the ball leaves a player's foot before drawing lines on the recipient of the pass to decide whether they are offside or not.
But now it looks like that is set to change, with all clubs agreeing that a change was needed to update the Premier League with UEFA's use of offside technology.
SAOT has already been used in the Champions League, as well as the AFC Champions League this season and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
