English Premier League to replace VAR with iPhone-powered system

Dozens of iPhones at football stadiums in England will enable referees to make better decisions during soccer matches.

When the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system was first deployed in a major football tournament, many hoped it would help referees avoid obvious mistakes.

The 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup was the first major international tournament to introduce VAR.

Many other football federations deployed the technology in the following years, including the English Premier League (EPL), the most-watched football league in the world.

However, even though VAR sometimes helped to make more accurate decisions, it also resulted in many debatable and controversial outcomes, especially in the last EPL season.

In response to these issues, the upcoming 2024-25 football season will introduce a new system developed by sports data and technology company Genius Sports, which will replace the current VAR system for offside detection. In response to these issues, the upcoming 2024-25 football season will use a new system created by sports data and technology company Genius Sports, which will be used instead of current VAR system for offside detection.

The EPL will use the company’s computer vision camera and data platform, which will be installed in every stadium where EPL matches are played.

Genius Sports claims the new system will enable live offside decision-making and broadcast-ready graphics. It will also generate full 3D renders of all players, the ball, and the offside wall in seconds, thus enabling officials to make better offside decisions.

Wired reports that the new system, called Dragon, will be powered by at least 28 iPhone cameras at every stadium in the English league. It will use the built-in cameras of the iPhone 14 and later iPhone models, housed in waterproof cases and connected to a power source.

Smartphones will reportedly be used to capture high-frame-rate videos from multiple angles, while Dragon’s custom machine intelligence software will allow the phones to communicate and process visual data collected by multiple cameras.

According to Genius Sports, there are more football leagues interested in the technology, as well as interest from other sports.