CBF praises semiautomated offside rollout after Santos 2-2 Chapecoense | OneFootball

The federation said semiautomated offside made its Brasileirão debut in round 20 during Santos’ 2-2 draw with Chapecoense at Vila Belmiro, then was applied on four further occasions, with an average check of 47 seconds.

On Saturday 25, the system assessed Chapecoense’s equaliser by Marcinho in 48 seconds. On Sunday 26 it was used twice in Flamengo v São Paulo, once in Bahia v Corinthians and once in Remo v Vitória. At the Maracanã, a São Paulo goal was cleared in 33 seconds and a Flamengo strike was ruled out in 64 seconds.

At Fonte Nova, Bahia’s equaliser was cancelled in 32 seconds, and at the Mangueirão Remo’s second goal was confirmed in 62 seconds.

Each stadium carried 28 to 32 dedicated cameras, supported by five local servers to ensure connectivity. Matches were captured in 4k, allowing a digital replica of each incident to be generated.

Images were sent in real time to the CBF’s Video Assistant Referee Operations Centre in Rio de Janeiro, which has 10 integrated control rooms equipped with VAR and SAOT.

Running at 100 frames per second, the system automatically selects the kick point, identifies the players involved and issues the offside verdict without human input. Semi-automated refers only to validation, the video team does not redraw lines or decide positioning, and may move a single frame in rare edge cases to confirm the pass moment, a precision check rather than a change of criteria or outcome. No such adjustment was needed in round 20, after validation the referee is informed and a 3D animation is shown in stadiums and on broadcasts.

The rollout aims to speed up decisions, improve accuracy and increase transparency, reducing subjectivity and aiding match flow.

Source: Diario Do Peixe