Referees To Wear Body Camera At FIFA World Club Cup
The Chairman of the FIFA referees committee, Pierluigi Collina, has confirmed that referees will wear body cameras at the 2025 FIFA World Club Cup in the United States.
The competition, which is set to be held from June 14 to July 13, 2025, would feature the use of body cameras for the first time in the history of the competition.
The body camera is expected to give the fans the perspective of goals, free kicks, tackles and attacking moves from the view of the referee immediately after they happen.
It has been tried by officials in the grassroots in England over the past two seasons in order to reduce the abuse directed at referees.
Collina revealed that the introduction of the body camera will enhance the fans’ experience and help the referees to make better decisions.
He said, “We think that it is a good chance to offer the viewers a new experience in terms of images taken from a perspective, from an angle of vision which was never offered before.
“It also has a purpose in terms of referee coaching. Because, of course, having the possibility to see what the referee sees is important in the debriefing to evaluate how the call was made by the referee, which was his view, and so on.
“So it’s a combination of new experience for broadcasters and also for coaching purposes.”
The cameras have been used for training purposes in grassroots football, and they were also tested in the Bundesliga and the Premier League.
The Bundesliga used a “RefCam” last season in a game between Eintracht Frankfurt and VfL Wolfsburg to provide insights into the referee’s perspective and the work of the VAR in a short documentary.
In the Premier League, Jarred Gillett had his every move recorded when Crystal Palace played Manchester United in the Premier League for a future documentary.
The referees, who have been pencilled down for officiating duties, attended a seminar in Zurich this week to prepare for the tournament.
Colina said that the referees are ready to embrace the extra responsibility that comes with the body camera.
He said: “[It’s the] first time ever to have the best clubs from each corner of the world competing. So it’s, I would say, an extra responsibility for us for refereeing, because we want to have our referees ready in the best conditions when the competition starts.
“And we are aware that a high standard of refereeing is key to having a successful competition.
“We are following [and] monitoring their fitness and their health. Basically, we try to provide them with all the support they may need. Our objective, our goal, is to have the FIFA ‘Team One’ at the very best of their conditions when the ball starts rolling in Miami.”
The expanded tournament format was announced in March 2019 and was originally scheduled to be hosted by China in 2021 until a postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
FIFA approved the allocation of slots between confederations in February 2023 and announced the United States as the host country four months later.
Manchester City are the defending champions of the old format.
Referees To Wear Body Camera At FIFA World Club Cup is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
