Football Introduces ‘Electronic Cards’ in Trial
Referees usually take cards from their pockets to warn or punish players during football matches. However, an unusual scene was witnessed in a Copa Uruguay match when a referee held up a phone-sized electronic device to caution a player.
The device is part of an experimental initiative to modernise the traditional system of showing yellow and red cards. Instead of the familiar yellow card, the referee used a digital screen.
Referee Eduardo Vareia used the device on Thursday during Nacional’s match against Rentistas in the Copa Uruguay. He was testing a system designed to simplify referees’ administrative work by digitally recording disciplinary decisions. Referees usually write down such decisions by hand after showing cards. The new digital card system aims to modernise this process.
Mauro Sacco, director of REFe, the organisation behind the project, explained the idea in an interview with Uruguayan radio station El Espectador Deportes on Friday. He said, ‘We want to bring technology to the only thing in football that is still analogue.’
The idea emerged more than three years ago when Sacco and his co-director, Diego de la Peña, were watching a match in the rain. They began considering how referees record cautions by hand before transferring the information to a digital system later.
The new device records match incidents with timestamps. Its developers aim to make it easier to submit official records to COMET, the Uruguayan Football Association’s platform.
However, the first real-world trials have exposed a problem: visibility. An earlier test was cancelled mainly because sunlight made the screen difficult to read. During Thursday’s match, spectators in the stands and television viewers also struggled to distinguish some of the referee’s decisions.
The developers are considering several improvements, including LED lighting around the device, to make its colours more visible to spectators. After further development, the team hopes the technology will eventually be recognised and adopted by South American football’s governing body, CONMEBOL, and world football’s governing body, FIFA.
