Now, though, things are changing, as David Elleray, former Premier League referee and a key figure in the world football’s technology revolution, explains.
The advent of the video assistant referee (VAR), which will be used in the Premier League for the first time this season, has the potential to change the game as we know it.
The brainchild of the Dutch, VAR follows goal-line technology as the latest development to drag football, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. Starting in 2010, the KNVB began trialing goal-line technology – with FIFA ratifying a breakthrough that most sports viewed as relatively primitive following a two-year test in the Dutch league.
Goal-line technology was eventually used in the Premier League in the 2013/14 season and now, six years after it was first introduced, the richest league in world football is preparing to take a giant leap into the unknown with VAR.
At the 2018 World Cup, an army of VAR officials, housed in an impressively equipped tech cave, could make decisions based on views from 33 different cameras, including eight super-slow-motion, two ultra-slow-motion, two ultra-HD and two specific smart cameras designed to capture images of offside players.
“For us, data is absolutely integral in enabling us to segment and target fans to essentially improve conversion rates,” says the head of digital strategy at a leading Premier League club.