This week’s article will evolve around football. Referees will still be indirectly involved in the topic as the things mentioned today will also influence their task on the field of play.

Just a week ago, the Daily Mirror published a highly interesting article written by Mark Walters where a report on the future of football was analysed. This report, commissioned by the telecommunications company Orange, was made by the scientists at Future Laboratory. The latter are a sort of avant-garde fortune tellers who today predict trends for blue-chip businesses.

In the ‘Orange Future of Football Report?a dossier on ways the game could evolve over the next 20 years was compiled.

Within the report, expert opinion was charted so as to reveal both the central role the advances in communications will have on the game, thereby benefiting players, referees, managers and fans alike and ultimately also to predict how football could look in 2020.

Those readers who have been experiencing and following football for a long number of years might end up stating that this predicted new version of football (the report said that one should see the use the likes of innovative sensors, invincible athletes and 3D replay [amongst many more things] by the year 2020) bears no relation whatsoever to the game of football as we know it.

Holographic pitches, interactive super-stadiums and fractional ownership of football clubs: all these might be part of how football will look in 2020 for the fan, as the introduction of technology changes the face of the game. As the fan becomes all the more demanding, engaged, knowledgeable and collaborative, clubs, players and stadiums are set to enhance their strategies to appeal to the 21st century spectator.

I read this article on the Daily Mirror (this also created quite a big stir in the media wordl and various other specialist sport publications and media commented about this report) and, in all honesty, had an initial mixed reaction as I could not come to grasp whether it was a joke, a fairy tale or whether it was based on a possible reality.

Upon reading all this it was, I believe, natural that curiosity seeped into me to actually have a look at the actual report, namely the ‘Orange Future of Football Report?

What follows, in today’s and next week’s article, will be a brief resume of this same report.

I expect some readers to initially treat these articles as a joke. I do not blame them to the full as I also did likewise initially. Yet, even due to the fact that I am also somewhat involved in computer technology, I then started wondering and noticed that most of the things mentioned in the report are somewhat possible given the fast developments in technology occurring nowadays. Only time will tell whether this report becomes a fact of life (although there will surely be some opposition on some aspects) or whether it will be just a far-fetched thought.

As the Daily Mirror put it, “games will be played in a scented stadium, with the stimulating aroma of nutmeg. Excitement will be generated with vibrating seats to get fans on their feet and supporters could soon be watching replays on personal mini monitors.?

Players will be ? billion-a-year super-athletes, sustained by stem cell banking and gene therapy to speed recovery from injuries.

Stem cell banking will accelerate their recovery from injury and improved nervous system nutrition will produce a new breed of super-athletes capable of running some 20km in 90 minutes.

Chameleon kits infused with radio frequency identification microchips will scroll through a range of advertising logos while the game is in progress, turning players into moving billboards.

Impact sensors, embedded in players' socks and shinpads, will send signals to the referee’s watch if they have been clattered by opposition defenders - exposing cheats and divers who use simulation to win penalties.

The playing area will become a ‘live?arena with players, referees and managers all linked to a network of sensors and global positioning systems (GPS) designed to eradicate human error.

Richard Crane, principal researcher at France Telecom’s development division, claimed: “Wrong decisions, like offside and whether the ball crossed the line, will cease to exist. The technology will lower the frustration of fans and enable referees to make correct decisions in real time?

What follows is a brief resume of this futuristic report.

In the first pages of the report, the fans?world was analysed and some new and emerging developments were mentioned.

Holographic viewing was said to be great possibility in the near future. Three dimensional TVs and computer-generated characters will be used to enrich the fans?viewing experience.

A further generation of improvements will be included in new stadiums. New technology will allow the possibility of the interactive stadium where miniature monitors will be placed all around the ground, maybe even one per seat.

Graham Fisher (head of research and development at mobile phone giants Orange) predicts having a choice of camera angles to complement each seat. There will be the introduction of in-seat services, with people pre-ordering by phone food, drink or merchandise, which is delivered over broadband to their seats whilst vibrating seats will be designed to get the crowd on its feet.

The concept of the ‘mobile stadium?will be launched whereby those unable to make it to the game will be able to watch special versions on their mobile phones, then upload them to their PC or games console. The latter would re-dimension the world of fantasy football as fans could then use the data to play a particular character and see if they could change how the match turned out.

‘How many people say “I could have saved that?or “I could have scored that??asks Graham Fisher. “It’s easy to put accelerometers in things. They have been put in phones, they can be put in boots. You could easily work out how hard the ball was kicked, the angle it was going at, and then, using 3D technology, transfer the incident to a game.?This level of involvement into the game expands a spectators experience beyond what is currently imaginable.

Graham Fisher also believes that the technology to make 360 images will become increasingly popular for those watching at home. ‘People watching remotely can select their view, zoom in, pull out, each watching their own personalised footage, increasing the level of participation,' he says.

The report will be further analysed in next week's article.

References:

http://www.mirror.co.uk

http://www.orange.co.uk