A decision support system for the professional soccer referee in time-sensitive operations

The growing popularity of soccer in terms of TV revenue and betting, as well as ubiquitous use of instant replay, has placed increased pressure on referee´s to make accurate decisions. Although the speed and agility of the game and scrutiny of referee decisions (e.g. slow motion replay from multiple camera angles) has increased over time, the human decision-making ability of the referee has remained constant. For example, in the 2010 World Cup, 8% of the decision events were inaccurate. To maintain the integrity of the game, the accuracy must be improved significantly. Interviews conducted with Subject Matter Experts (SME) and an analysis of 17 English Premier League (EPL) games identified on average 627 decision events per game. Analysis of inaccurate calls identified excessive distance from the referee to the event, and referee blindspot as the two phenomena that resulted in inaccurate referee decisions. Three design alternatives were developed to address the distance and blindspot issues faced by the referee: vehicle propelled transportation (e.g. Segway), 2 official referees, and an overhead camera. Analysis of the performance of these design alternatives in 100 games, simulating ball movement and referee position, showed that the overhead camera relaying information to the official referee improves the referees decision accuracy of missed calls due to blind-spots by 20.26% and 11.31% over Segway and the two refereeing system, respectively.