World Cup 2026: FIFA adds new offside technology to help VAR

The delayed offside flag could almost become a thing of the past after FIFA unveiled new technology to be used at the 2026 World Cup.

FIFA will introduce advanced semi-automated offsides for video assistant referees (VAR) to make quick decisions and mean an assistant can raise the flag instead of waiting for play to be played out.

A real-time audio alert will be sent to the assistant if a player is more than 10cm offside.

Previous versions of the technology tested at the Club World Cup and Intercontinental Cup only notified officials if a player was more than 50cm offside.

Officials will be in charge of when the flag will be hoisted and when play will stop. They can lower the flag if they suspect there is an error, but FIFA says the technology has several fail-safe measures to prevent errors from occurring.

The technology will still be unable to pick out the nearest offsides, though there are limitations if players are on the ground or too close together.

It can only be used for positional offsides and not for subjective calls, which require an explanation as to whether a player interfered with an opponent without touching the ball.

FIFA hopes that this will alleviate some of the frustration felt by fans and players and reduce the potential for injuries caused by unnecessary passages of play when the offside flag is raised.

In May 2025, the Nottingham Forest striker Aoniyi also had to be placed in an induced coma When the assistant is too late to raise an offside flag after a collision with a post.

FIFA has also confirmed this As in life, each player is an AI-enabled 3D avatar will be made for more accurate decision making.

This means creating a digital scan of all 1,248 players in the 26-member squads of the 48 teams.

Each player will enter a chamber to be scanned, a process that should take just one second and only need to be done once during their pre-tournament photo shoot.

As a result, enhanced, cleaner offside animations will be used at the World Cup