The Use of Video Technologies in Refereeing Football and Other Sports


Book Description

For a long time, various different lobbying sectors have claimed that the use of video technology is an effective aid in decision-making. Now the IFAB has taken a historic step in the approval of experiments on the use of video to provide support to football refereeing. The Use of Video Technologies in Refereeing Football and Other Sports analyses the capacity of audio-visual technology from different perspectives to help understand the best implementation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system in football and, more generally, in other sports. This book addresses in-depth interdisciplinary viewpoints on the need and the opportunity of the implementation procedures regarding how to use it, considering that it could lead to very important changes. The book goes on to examine various approaches to the most interesting topics for players, amateurs, coaches, referees and referees coaches. Offering viewpoints from both academics and professionals, this new volume addresses the VAR issue in a multidisciplinary way, analysing the implications of video replay application in football from the perspective of players, coaches, television professionals, referees, amateurs, sports lawyers, media and educators.







Managing and Developing Sports Officials


Book Description

This book offers an evidence-based guide to the development, management, and retention of sports officials. Drawing on research at all levels of sport, from grassroots to professional, this book focuses on best practices for sports officials and for anybody involved in the management or training of sports officials. This book is divided into three parts. The first takes a close look at who sports officials are, their motivations, and the formal and informal organizational relationships that define an official’s position in sport. The second examines the factors that can keep an official engaged in their sport, from building healthy cultures and good physical preparation to mentoring and mental health. The final part looks at the development of officials to elite level, including effective communication, improving decision-making, interpreting rules and laws, and career pathways. With case studies, real-life examples, and the voices of practicing officials included throughout this book, it introduces core concepts and best practices applicable across sports and different national and international contexts. This is an essential reference for all sports officials and for practitioners and policymakers working in sports organizations at all levels.




2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup


Book Description

This book examines the most prolific international women’s football tournament—the FIFA Women’s World Cup—through media, fandom and how mediated women’s soccer can improve on a global scale. Women’s soccer has exploded in terms of media exposure, television audiences and live spectatorship. This book explores those macro-level issues, while also digging into micro-level topics such as Megan Rapinoe’s celebrations and political activism, VAR reviews, LGBTQ imagery, and cultural obstacles for women’s football in Central-Eastern Europe and Nigeria. Using an interdisciplinary approach, scholars look at issues through the lenses of feminist theory, cultural studies, rhetorical criticism, political economy, performative sport fandom, autoethnography, and more. Thus, the book is important reading for students, researchers and media practitioners with interests in women’s soccer, gender in sports media, coverage of women’s sport, and sport fandom.




On Fairness, Justice, and VAR


Book Description

This book analyzes the 2018 and 2019 men's and women's World Cups to understand how the use of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) affected each tournament. Unlike goal technology, where the decision is entirely left to the machine's algorithm, the VAR still has a human component, making it prone to errors and controversies. Building on the theories of justice, the book quantitatively reviews event-level data while using a historical perspective to depict a novel approach to the effects of VAR in major soccer tournaments. The six chapters examine the use of VAR, discuss when it was not used (but maybe should have been used), and explore how the World Cup evolved with the new technology. Combining the VAR events of 2018 and 2019 with comparable situations from past World Cups guides the reader into debating the meaning of justice and the potential of ever achieving fairness in soccer.




Sports Technology


Book Description




Sport, Law and Philosophy


Book Description

Sport, Law and Philosophy: The Jurisprudence of Sport discusses the intersection of law and sport and highlights its usefulness to both legal scholars and philosophers of sport. There is a general recognition that law and sports bear strong similarities. Both can be understood as systems of rules, with a judge/referee who has the power to adjudicate and to issue punishments/penalties. Divided into two parts, this volume presents an exploration of central philosophical issues arising from the intersections of law and sport and makes reference to current events and controversies. Experts from across the globe discuss a range of issues such as sports as legal systems, the game as a social contract, the role of the referee, including VAR, rule breaking, equality in women’s sport, justice on the sports field and in the court room, and issues surrounding the application of law to sports. The book will be a valuable resource to Undergraduates, Postgraduates and for those working in the areas of legal philosophy, sports law, and philosophy of sport.




Computer Science in Sport


Book Description




Wearable Technology in Elite Sport


Book Description

Wearable devices are being used by an increasing number of elite-level sports teams to manage and control the health, performance, and productivity of their athletes. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary resources, Wearable Technology in Elite Sport reveals how wearable devices are used to quantify athletic bodies in ways that have a number of undesirable consequences for the embodied subject. This book identifies some of the problematic consequences of excessive ‘dataveillance’ in sport by interrogating the process by which wearable data is produced, represented, and enacted in the governance of athletic behaviour. The book provides a set of conceptual resources for thinking critically about the powerful role played by measurement systems in shaping athletic embodiment. The themes that this book examines include an exploration of how technological devices serve an important disciplinary function in elite sport and how wearable-derived data might act to affect high-level athletes. The book is written in a lively and accessible style and appeals to a broad academic readership including undergraduate and postgraduate students in a range of fields including sports science, coaching, digital health, sociology, information studies, and science and technology studies.




Referees, Match Officials and Abuse


Book Description

This book explores issues related to the abuse of referees and match officials in sport. Drawing on original empirical research in football, rugby union, rugby league and cricket, it provides an insight into the complexities involved in the recruitment, retention and development processes of match officials from across the global sports industry. Using an evidence-based approach, the book examines why abuse occurs, the operational environments in which match officials operate, and underlying issues and trends that cut across sports and therefore can be linked to wider societal trends. It challenges global sport policy and discusses the development of an inclusive, cohesive and facilitative environment for match officials, players, coaches and spectators to ensure the future provision of global sport. Referees, Match Officials and Abuse is an invaluable resource for all students, scholars and national governing bodies of sport with an interest in match officials, sports governance, sport policy, sport management and the sociology of sport.