La Liga president Javier Tebas has announced that the Spanish top flight intends to implement fully automated offside technology starting in the 2026-27 season.
Tebas made the announcement during the formal signing of the first-ever Collective Agreement for professional football refereeing in Spain. Gathered at the Ciudad del Futbol in Las Rozas, leaders from La Liga, the RFEF, and the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) formalised a deal to further professionalise the industry.
While the event focused on administrative and financial improvements for officials, Tebas used the platform to outline a radical shift in how the game is officiated, moving away from “semi” solutions in favour of total automation.
Referee Isidro Diaz de Mera Escuderos watches a replay on a VAR screen during the LaLiga match between Sevilla and Real Oviedo. (Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images)
To ensure proper accountability, the league aims to use FIFA-approved microchips embedded within match balls to provide instantaneous decisions. This significant change aims to eradicate human error and the contentious manual selection of video frames.
Tebas was open about his dissatisfaction with existing tools, claiming that the term “semi-automated” implies a level of human intervention that the league prefers to avoid.
“We are implementing, we’ll see if it’s ready for next year, automatic offside,” Tebas explained, as quoted by Marca. “Currently, there’s semi-automatic, but I don’t like ‘semi’. It would involve putting a chip inside the ball, approved by FIFA, to detect when the ball is struck. This requires a special camera system in the stadiums. It would be an automatic offside system, eliminating the need for the famous frames. Approval is still pending, as is reviewing the different ball brands used in the leagues… it all needs to be coordinated. But it’s one of the technological objectives we’re setting for next season.”
Before the chip-in-ball technology can debut, La Liga must navigate a complex coordination phase involving FIFA approval and the standardisation of various match ball manufacturers used across the league.
The new collective agreement will also trigger retroactive salary increases for referees, aimed at stabilising the profession as it prepares for this high-tech transition during the upcoming summer break.
