Semi-automated offside VAR at Serie A League 2022-2023, hunt for new AIA president

Semi-automated offside technology which was trialled during February's FIFA Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi and last year's Arab Cup. It was also used at the World Cup in Qatar and the group stage of this season's Champions League. After a series of successful use, this VAR technology will now be used for Serie A football league competition which is set to go on from 4 January 2023 to 4 June 2023. There are overall 38 rounds which are to be played in Serie A league and this VAR technology will be used from the 20th round in the last week of January after consultation with the Italian Referees Association (AIA). The announcement was made by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) on Monday.

New AIA President soon

The decision to utilise VAR technology in Serie A matches was announced during the FIGC board meeting on Monday. In the meeting, FIGC President Gabriel Gravina also announced that, after Alfredo Trentalange's resignation on Sunday, elections for a new head of AIA will be held within 90 days. This comes as the nation's refereeing association (AIA) searches for a new president after the resignation of former AIA President Alfredo Trentalange due to a drug controversy. When it became known that Rosario D'Onofrio, the AIA's head prosecutor, had been detained for taking part in an international drug trafficking conspiracy, Trentalange was held accountable.

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When Rosario D'Onofrio applied to be promoted to prosecutor, AIA claimed that he omitted from them the fact that he had previously been placed under house arrest for drugs offences. D'Onofrio was one of several persons who were detained in November. According to the FIGC, their own inquiries showed that D'Onofrio was under house arrest when he was chosen prosecutor in early 2021 and that between September of last year and this September "he was not once authorised to leave his home."

How does this semi-automated offside VAR tech work?

The new system tracks the ball using 12 specialised tracking cameras positioned below the stadium's roof and analyses up to 29 data points for each player, 50 times per second, to determine their precise location on the field. All limbs and extremities that are important for determining offside are included in the 29 data points that were gathered, as per FIFA. The innovative system automatically alerts the VAR match officials inside the video operation room if the ball is received by an attacker who was in an offside position when the ball was played by a teammate by merging the limb-and ball-tracking data and using artificial intelligence.

The video match officials manually verify the automatically generated kick point and the automatically generated offside line, which is based on the computed locations of the players' limbs, before advising the on-field referee of the proposed decision. Offside judgements may be made more quickly and precisely thanks to this technique, which just takes a few seconds to complete.

Check the animated video of the VAR tech here

Offside Tech controversies

Offside rulings have been a contentious issue in Italy since the implementation of VAR, with one especially odd judgement penalising Juventus against Salernitana back in September. A VAR review determined that Leonardo Bonucci was offside and interfered with play, disallowing Arkadiusz Milik's header in the last seconds of stoppage time that would have given Juve a 3-2 victory. The later-released video proved that Salernitana's Antonio Candreva had kept everyone onside, but the VAR officials failed to notice him since he was standing behind the corner flag.

Incredulous at how the judgement could have gone wrong with so many cameras at the Allianz Stadium, the decision infuriated football fans and commentators around Italy in addition to Juve. At the time, AIA claimed that the VAR authorities lacked access to cameras which would have demonstrated that Milik's goal ought to have stood.