Semi-automated offside in the Premier League: Genius Sports cameras at every stadium

The Premier League is the first of Europe's five biggest leagues to roll out semi-automated offside in two stages. On 11 April 2024 the clubs agreed unanimously to bring in the technology. The league's statement was blunt: the system would not be ready for the opening of the season on 16 August and would arrive after one of the autumn international breaks.

The heart of the setup is not the television cameras most viewers picture. It is a separate network of computer-vision cameras supplied by Genius Sports and installed at every stadium in the league. The devices track the ball and thousands of data points for each player and for the ball itself, not just the feed handed to broadcasters.

How the procedure works

When a decisive event occurs, a penalty, a goal or a red card, the system checks whether any of the attacking players involved in the move was offside. If a player receives the ball in an offside position, the technology sends a signal to the officials in the VAR Hub. They verify the indicated moment of contact with the ball and the automatically drawn offside line. Only then do they inform the on-field referee.

The league does not promise that contested situations will disappear. The statement named three cases where human intervention will still be needed: the ball being screened by a group of players, "tight" situations, and judging whether a player in an offside position was interfering with play. VAR handles the first two. The third stays with the referee.

The biggest benefit of semi-automated offside is the efficiency of the process, said Howard Webb, chief refereeing officer at PGMOL. Manual use of the technology can take time, especially in more complex situations.

Webb points to the heart of the name: the system stays "semi-automated" because VAR has to confirm the result, for example a correctly identified moment of the ball being kicked. Tony Scholes, the Premier League's chief football officer, adds a second argument, transparency: the graphic with the decision goes to broadcasters, to the league's platforms and to the stadium screens.

What it means for other leagues

Offside is a special case because it involves measurement, not judgement. That is why automation arrived here first, and why the solution could be sold to fans as shorter stoppages rather than handing power to an algorithm. The rest of the VAR decisions stay in human hands, and the league says so openly.

One proportion is worth remembering: two decades after the first discussion about technology in football, the world's biggest league market rolled out offside over half a season, under final live verification. That shows how much work the step from demonstration to daily use takes, and how cautiously competitions that can afford the best equipment approach it.