Major sporting events regularly bring with them technical innovations that are intended to make decisions more transparent. In the past, however, the associated rule changes have often led to discussions. The 2026 World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico not only has more games than any previous World Cup, FIFA is also bringing a variety of rule and technical changes with it. The semi-automatic offside detection has been further developed in several places, the “Trionda” match ball has a sensor embedded on the side for the first time, all 1,248 players were individually scanned in advance as 3D avatars, the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is given expanded powers, and mandatory drinking breaks in the 22nd and 67th minutes change the flow of the game. There are also various new rules (see box). It is doubtful whether all of this actually leads to more justice and fewer discussions. The 2026 World Cup is technology, show and sport all in one, but not always to the delight of football purists.
Connected Ball Technology: Der Sensor wandert ins Element
Since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, there has been an IMU chip (Inertial Measurement Unit) in every match ball, developed by Adidas together with the Munich company Kinexon. This Connected Ball Technology records speed, direction, spin and the exact moment of ball contact 500 times per second – and transmits this data wirelessly to receivers in the stadium.
The sensor determines this contact moment with a time resolution of 2 ms, so that the offside decision could be extremely precise. In practice, however, the accuracy is limited by the tracking cameras, which only work at 50 frames per second at the World Cup – this results in a time window of 20 ms between two frames. If you sprint at 10 m/s, the ball can move up to 20 cm during this time. The ball sensor provides the exact time of the pass, but the cameras have to interpolate the corresponding player position from the nearest frame. When it comes to close calls, this is the difference between a goal and being offside. Whether this effort is technically necessary can be debated – the Premier League has been tracking offside situations since last season with 100 Hz cameras, without a ball sensor. More on that later.
That was the excerpt from our heise-Plus article “Football World Cup 2026: Which technology FIFA wants to use to make the World Cup more precise”. With a heise Plus subscription you can read the entire article.
