The inaugural FIFA Club World Cup™ will feature innovations that will help make faster and more accurate offside decisions through semi-automated offside technology and give fans the chance to "put themselves in the referees’ shoes” with the use of body cams by the match officials. Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, said the latter would “help viewers understand how difficult a referee's job could be”. A total of 117 match officials – 35 referees, 58 assistant referees and 24 video match officials – from 41 member associations will take charge of the 63 matches during the tournament, and Mr Collina said that taking part in the first edition of the new competition would give it special significance.

"All the referees here, all the match officials here, are extremely thrilled by being here, because in a certain way, they are making history. They are taking part (for) the first time ever, and it’s something that will be remembered, so we are extremely pleased, happy, excited (to be) here. And it is an extra motivation to deliver performances of the highest level possible," he said.

One of the key innovations will be the use of semi-automated offside technology, which has already been successfully trialled at the FIFA Intercontinental Cup 2024™ and a number of FIFA’s youth tournaments. An advanced version will be used at the FIFA Club World Cup, with the aim of making the decision-making process for offside situations as fast as possible.

"One of the issues we have is when the assistant referee has to keep the flag down (so that he doesn’t) stop an attacking phase — possibly leading (to) a goalscoring opportunity because there is an uncertain offside position — and then they decide what to do at the end," said Mr Collina. "Sometimes, players have to run 40 metres, and after the 40 metres, the assistant referee raises the flag. This is a risk for players because they can pick up an injury. So, if we can manage to get the assistant referee supported by technology in avoiding (keeping) the flag down when needed, this makes the offside decision faster. And this is what we want to achieve by this developed version of this semi-automated offside technology."

Another innovation will be the use of body cameras by referees, with footage to be used by FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Exclusive Global Broadcaster DAZN as part of live match broadcasts during the tournament.

One of the main goals of this test is to explore whether the new camera angle can improve the experience for those watching on television and online by showcasing the referee’s perspective. Furthermore, FIFA will use the findings from the tournament to create guidelines for the use of such cameras in football.

"Having a camera worn by the referee will give the TV viewers the possibility to put themselves in the referee’s shoes and they will watch what the referee can see live during the match," said Mr Collina. "It’s a new experience. It’s also understanding what a referee can see during different phases of play. And, yeah, I think it will also offer the possibility to TV viewers to understand how the referee’s job is difficult.”

FIFA Director of Innovation Johannes Holzmüller said the innovations were designed to improve fans’ enjoyment of the tournament. “Over the past 18 months, we have developed, we have been working on new innovations aiming to improve the fan experience,” he said. “So, now this all comes to life at this tournament. It will be very interesting to see how the fans react. And we believe that we (are improving) the fan experience.”

“We have optical tracking in each of the competition stadiums. That means that we have millions of data points per match. Now we are developing algorithms – AI-based automatic detection of event data, meaning that data that has been collected in the past manually can now be automatically collected via these algorithms. And we try to create value out of this information for the teams, for the referees but also, of course, for the fans. “