January/May 2020
4th Year Individual Project: Improving Offside Decision Making in Football
Here I have presented some of the key pages from my 4th year individual project. The aim of this project was to come up with a product/system that would aid referees in their offside decision making. The key criteria for the final concept were as follows:
Make the offside decision process more accurate.
Make the offside decision process quicker.
Improve public trust in the offside decision process.
The project took place over the full academic year and was submitted in two stages. Pages from each of these stages have been presented chronologically. The poster used in the final presentation is also shown.
Project Summary
I used a detailed design process to go from initial groundwork to developing a final concept. I started by researching the current offside system used by VAR. I detailed potential flaws with the virtual offside line and thanks to a survey, got a good idea of fan opinion on the system. By interviewing experts, I got to know more about the technical and practical aspects of offside decision making.
From here, I generated 10 concepts that were evaluated with selection matrices. The concepts were compared against the current system and those that scored poorly were either removed or combined. This evaluation stage concluded with three concepts remaining. After a user evaluation, expert opinion and further analysis, the final concept was selected. This concept was then refined and developed further.
My final concept was a redesigned EPTS vest that incorporates GPS sensors on the shoulders. These shoulder sensors would provide precise position data that could be used with VAR’s current offside system. The VAR would no longer need to manually draw offside lines from the shoulders, speeding up and removing ambiguity from the decision process. This in turn should improve public trust in VAR’s offside decision making.
I also laid out recommendations for offside rule changes and a VAR offside operational change that I believe would improve offside decision making. These recommendations address fans’ issues and mitigate the flaws identified with the current system.
