FIFA referee chief Collina reveals how AI is changing football officiating
FIFA Referees now prepare using Football AI Pro, a Lenovo-FIFA system crunching more than 2,000 metrics per match
Pierluigi Collina retired as a referee more than 20 years ago, yet he's still the only match official most fans could pick out of a line-up. On the eve of the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, he's running officiating for the biggest tournament FIFA has ever staged and fielding a very particular kind of phone call.
If something controversial happens, the president of FIFA Gianni Infantino is usually the first person to be questioned. "Normally he says, 'What was that?' I need to answer him," Collina explains, talking about the Miami control room with interconnected screens.
Four years ago, during the tournament in Qatar, the two of them watched all 64 games together. It won't be possible this time due to the fact that the tournament takes place in three countries.
Collina disagrees with the opinion that the use of VAR diminishes the excitement of scoring a goal. "The player immediately reacts and celebrates. Then there is a moment of suspense, because there is a check. And at the end, when the goal is confirmed, there is a second celebration," he says. He prefers waiting for the right decision to having wrong decisions being discussed for decades, like in the case of the 1966 final.
FIFA World Cup: From goal-line to 3D avatars
Goal line technology made its way into the Brazilian football scene in 2014, as Collina says, for the simple reason that no one could tell whether a ball had crossed the line.
The case was different with offside judgements, as the spectators could not trust the lines made by the humans, although the accuracy was the same. The solution came in the form of an automated offside system using Lenovo's technology of making 3D player avatars by scanning more than 1,200 players.
VAR uses Hawk-Eye Innovations on Lenovo ThinkStation computers, whereas Lenovo's artificial intelligence also runs on Referee View, a stabilised video from bodycams used in Formula 1 races.
Referees now prepare using Football AI Pro, a Lenovo-FIFA system crunching more than 2,000 metrics per match. But Collina is clear about its ceiling: physical contact, pushing, pulling, and shirt-pulls still require human judgement no algorithm can replace. "The misconception is we have the technology, and we can provide an answer to everything," he says.
As Spain and Argentina prepare to settle the tournament on the pitch, Collina's verdict is a reminder that even FIFA's most advanced systems still leave the final calls to human eyes.
