Balls at the Qatar World Cup have become so technologically advanced that they have to be charged

Every FIFA World Cup captures the attention of millions of fans. The refereeing corps comes under a lot of pressure from fans. But now it will be easier to defend their point of view – FIFA began using new balls, literally stuffed with sensors. This approach will eliminate disputes on the field of play when it is not clear who scored a goal.

The World Cup in Qatar will make it possible to evaluate the technology and usefulness of such balls. They require charging, like smartphones, and contain inside sensors of two types. They collect and transmit data on the position of the ball, its speed and the presence of touches with a frequency of polling 500 times per second. Similar sensors are attached to 29 points on all players’ bodies. The collected data is transmitted at a slower rate, but it’s enough to accurately determine the position and actions of each player.

These two streams of information are superimposed on the video recording. At any point in the timing of the video, it is possible to determine exactly where the ball and any of the players were. Just recently, the technology proved its worth when a tense situation arose at the Uruguayan goal and a goal was scored. Initially, it was thought that Cristiano Ronaldo was the author, but after analyzing the data, the goal was “given” to Bruno Fernandes.