Officials believe introducing fully automated technology will improve the speed of decisions and also reduce the controversy around marginal offside calls
La Liga will introduce fully automated offside systems from the 2026-27 season in order to address refereeing challenges, according to president Javier Tebas.
The proposed system would move beyond the current semi-automated technology used across Europe by relying on microchips embedded inside match balls to determine the exact moment the ball is struck.
Combined with specialised camera systems situated around the stadium, the technology would generate offside decisions automatically, removing the need for video officials choosing and evaluating frames manually.
Poor refereeing decisions have been a major talking point in Spain this season. In the Copa del Rey semi-final match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, it took officials seven minutes to decide that Robert Lewandowski’s heel was offside before Pau Cubarsi scored for Barcelona. Even then, some viewers felt that the decision was wrong.
La Liga officials believe introducing fully automated technology will improve the speed of decisions and also reduce the controversy around marginal offside calls. It is much easier to blame humans for subjective input than automatic systems.
“We are implementing – we’ll see if it’s ready for next year – automatic offside,” Tebas said. “Currently, there’s semi-automatic, but I don’t like ‘semi’.
“[The automatic offside system] would involve putting a chip inside the ball, approved by Fifa, to detect when the ball is struck. This requires a special camera system in the stadiums. It would be an automatic offside system, eliminating the need for the famous frames.
“Approval is still pending, as is reviewing the different ball brands used in the leagues. It all needs to be coordinated. But it’s one of the technological objectives we’re setting for next season.”
