The football teams of 32 nations are gathered in Qatar for the quadrennial FIFA World Cup. Some 5 billion people around the world are expected to tune in to watch matches over the course of the month-long tournament.
These enormous audiences will be ready to applaud great play – and to howl ferociously when a referee’s decision goes against their team. To ensure the tough decisions are fair and accurate, FIFA (the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the sport’s global governing body) has invested not only in the best human referees but also in the latest and greatest in technological tools.
Video replays and other tools can help cut down on blatant mistakes and human oversights, but will they ever eradicate errors entirely?
