Groningen, one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in Europe, offered the perfect setting for the World Congress on Science and Football following the slogan "Enhance Performance, Engage Society". More than 350 scientists from more than 50 countries accepted the invitation to the 10th edition of this congress series from May 23rd to May 26th, which after more than 35 years has established itself as an important platform for scientific exchange. Together with high-profile guests from sports practice, such as Arjen Robben and top referee Danny Makkelie, a wide range of topics was discussed, like new approaches in talent research, opportunities for using machine learning and the impact of football on society.
The Technical University of Munich was represented by Dr Otto Kolbinger, who contributed a well-received talk to the “Technology” session. Also due to the increasing importance of artificial intelligence, the question of the extent to which people have trust in decisions made by technology gets discussed increasingly. One such example from soccer are offside calls by the recently introduced Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT). In cooperation with Dr Daniel Smith from Springfield College (Massachusetts), the chair is currently investigating to which extent fans trust decisions made by SAOT and how fans react to this Technological Officiating Aid in general. Dr Otto Kolbinger showed the first results of this study and gave background information on the expected decision-making quality of the technology. Also against the background of Danny Makkelie's talk about the impact of Technological Officiating Aids on referees, this talk aroused great interest.
The chair would like to thank the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen for the successful organization of the conference and is looking forward to the follow-up conference in 2025 at the University of the West of Scotland.
drive.google.com/file/d/1rGaq2eh2sEaX9e_4ZQGys-g9TiDBK1rh/view