Premier League fans get to see what is to come as SAOT (semi-automated offside technology) makes its English football debut in the FA Cup fifth round this weekend.
It should be a key addition, helping reduce the time needed to make offside decisions and produce clearer graphic visualisations of offside decisions.
SAOT has already been used at two World Cups (Qatar 2022 and Australia and New Zealand 2023 women’s tournament), in the Champions League since the 2022-2023 season, in the Serie A since January 2023, and in La Liga since the start of this season.
What is SAOT?
SAOT is a tool for the video assistant referee (VAR) that automates key elements of the offside decision-making process. These key elements are the ‘kick-point’ (the exact time the ball was played) and the positioning of the relevant defender and attacker.
For offsides, VAR confirms or recommends a change to onfield decisions made by the referee and linesmen on close calls, so SAOT will assist with these decisions.
How these calls are currently judged, without SAOT, is through replay operators (RO) who manually determine the ‘kick-point’ for the offside decision and then draw lines on the relevant defender and attacker using multiple camera angles. A decision is then generated, and a player can be judged offside by any part of the head, body, or feet. This current process has been criticised for taking too long.
When and where is it being used?
All seven ties taking place in Premier League stadia in the fifth round of the FA Cup will use SAOT. This marks its first use in English football.
These ties are: Aston Villa vs Cardiff City Crystal Palace vs Millwall Bournemouth vs Wolverhampton Wanderers Manchester City vs Plymouth Argyle Newcastle United vs Brighton and Hove Albion Manchester United vs Fulham
Nottingham Forest vs Ipswich Town
Preston North End vs Burnley, an all-Championship affair at Deepdale, is the only tie not using it.
SAOT will be another acronym for Premier League fans to get used to when it is fully introduced this season. It was originally intended to be introduced “after one of the autumn international breaks,” according to the league, but this was delayed.
Premier League clubs unanimously approved its introduction for the 2024-2025 season in April 2024.
How will it work?
SAOT will automate the job of a replay operator by suggesting a ‘kick-point’ and automatically creating offside lines on the second furthest back defender and the relevant attacker. The Premier League says this will save an average of around 31 seconds per offside.
The SAOT decision is then reviewed and approved by the VAR and automatically creates a visual display shown on stadium screens for fans.
Up to 30 new cameras will be installed around each Premier League stadium to support the system, and many will capture footage at twice the frame rate of typical broadcast cameras — 100 frames per second.
During the two World Cups featuring SAOT, FIFA used ‘connected balls’ with chips in them, to be precise about the ‘kick-point’. But the cameras the Premier League intends to use will track the exact movement of the ball, meaning they do not feel a chip is required.
Players are also continuously tracked using 10,000 data points on the bodies of all 22 players, helping automatically determine whether or not the attacker was offside at the ‘kick-point’ and flagging if any offside player was involved in the build-up to an incident to the VAR and SAOT operator.
SAOT is fully automated and can be overseen by one operator; VAR requires several people to do the job of SAOT manually.
Will this increase accuracy?
It will not affect the accuracy of offside decision-making but is intended to increase the speed at which decisions are made.
Technically, Premier League offside decisions could not get any more accurate as they have been judged to be 100 percent accurate so far this season, according to the FA.
However, complaints about time delays when studying marginal offside calls have not disappeared in what is VAR’s sixth season in England’s top-flight.
What does this mean for VAR?
The technology is considered ‘semi-automated’ as it still requires human input from the video assistant referee, who confirms the decision and reviews the ‘kick-point’ and whether the players highlighted and the parts of their body being compared are accurate.
A VAR could also conclude that the referee needs to conduct an on-field review for a ‘subjective’ offside call, like when an attacking player does not touch the ball but could be interfering while in an offside position.
The VAR will still have the option to draw lines in the case of an SAOT failure or when players are blocking the view of the ball or the system’s cameras, so-called ‘edge cases’.
(Header photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
