Referees will wear bodycams at this summer’s Club World Cup.
The move aims to offer television viewers more angles of the action with footage from the cameras available to broadcasters at the competition, which includes Man City and Chelsea, in the United States.
Many will also hope that it will help improve player behaviour towards officials.
Pierluigi Collina, chairman of FIFA’s referees committee, said: ‘It is a good chance to offer the viewers a new experience, in terms of images taken from a perspective, from an angle of vision which was never offered before.’
‘It’s a combination of new experience for broadcasters and also for coaching purposes.
‘Having the possibility to see what the referee sees is important in the debriefing, to evaluate how the call was made by the referee, which was his view, and so on.’
Jarred Gillett made Premier League history by wearing a head-mounted camera last season
Bodycams were trialled by referees in grassroots games across three months in 2023
Mail Sport launched a campaign to stop the abuse of referees at all levels of the game in 2023
Mail Sport has been calling for referees to wear body cams since 2023 as part of our Stop Abusing Referees campaign.
Grassroots referee Anthony Harris told Mail Sport that he noticed a significant improvement in player behaviour whenever he wore a bodycam and encouraged officials at all levels to do so.
Jarred Gillett became the first referee to wear a bodycam during a Premier League game in Crystal Palace’s 4-0 win over Man United last year.
The footage taken was not included during the live broadcast of the game and was permitted as a ‘one-off’ to capture footage for a programme promoting match officials.
In February 2024, a referee wore a bodycam during a Bundesliga match for the first time, before one was used during the 1-1 draw between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich in November.
Bodycams have been used in Major League Soccer in recent seasons.
The 32-team competition in the United States will also attempt to crack down on time-wasting by goalkeepers, awarding a corner to the opposing team if they hold on to the ball beyond eight seconds.
The current rule states that ‘keepers are supposed to be sanctioned with an indirect free-kick if they hold on for more than six seconds. However, the offence is rarely penalised.
The Club World Cup begins on June 14 and runs until July 13.
