“Collaboration is key” between FIFA and all relevant stakeholders – from FIFA Member Associations (MAs) and referees to technology companies and research institutes – to innovate and grow the game, FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström has told the first FIFA Innovation Conference. Global football and technology stakeholders gathered at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland, for the two-day conference led by FIFA’s Director of Innovation Johannes Holzmüller to look at the success of recent technological innovations, such as the use of referee body cams at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ and lay out the next steps to be taken.

“Innovation has always been a great priority for me, and since I became Secretary General a bit more than a year ago, one of my first decisions was actually to create an Innovation Division,” said Mr Grafström by video link. “I wanted to broaden the scope to have all of innovation, because football - despite the fact that it can be seen as a conservative sport - has really embraced technology in recent years. And there are so many opportunities for all of you to contribute and also be a part of this movement.” He added: “Of course collaboration is key. And this is why FIFA is here together with all of you to give you this platform and hopefully we can reach new grounds in the coming years together.” The focus on collaboration was reiterated by Johannes Holzmüller in his address to the conference. “Innovation is a joint effort, so that’s important,” the Director of Innovation said. “FIFA cannot do that alone, so we need close collaboration with FIFA’s Member Associations, confederations, with leagues, with private companies, with research institutes, test institutes and many more, so that we can really develop new innovations to improve our game.”

Launched in 2024, the FIFA Innovation Programme aligns with FIFA’s Strategic Objectives for the Global Game: 2023-2027, which lay out the goal of using technology to benefit every aspect of football. The FIFA Club World Cup 2025 saw a number of providers selected through the FIFA Innovation Portal successfully trial innovations focused on the fan experience, notably immersive digital platforms and real-time interaction tools. In addition, referees were helped on the pitch by advanced semi-automated offside technology while Artificial Intelligence-driven automated data collection allowed real-time data to be provided more cost-efficiently to the different stakeholders such as participating teams or media partners.

Conference delegates – who attended in person and online – were given feedback on these innovations as well as looking at Football Video Support (FVS), which has been used at recent FIFA youth competitions and in a number of domestic competitions within FIFA Member Associations (MAs). FVS is a more cost-effective video replay system than VAR, which requires technological, logistical and human resources beyond the capacity of certain MAs. Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee Pierluigi Collina addressed the conference and highlighted how innovations such as FVS and VAR contribute to fairer football.

“It’s not positive that a result of a match can be influenced by an honest wrong decision taken by the referee. So, innovation technology helped football – it prevents major mistakes from occurring. So, it was something definitely very, very important and beneficial,” he explained, but he also insisted referees – and not technology – would remain in charge. “We have to not forget that the tool is something helping the human to do his job, and the final decision on the field of play, as well as in many other fields, should continue to belong to the human being – in this case of course, to the referee.”

It was a point that Johannes Holzmüller reiterated, stating: “All the tools are always around the human being, meaning we look at how we can support to improve the football experience for the people on and off the pitch.” In addition to FVS, the use of broadcast images for player tracking and the standardisation of pitches and floodlighting was also discussed with FIFA seeking to level up the use of technology across all 211 MAs. “One of our biggest challenges is to democratise technology or to democratise innovation,” concluded FIFA’s Director of Innovation. “That means whatever we bring to the game, we also always try not only to bring it to the elite game – meaning to the leagues, clubs, to the [communities] with the bigger budgets – but also to make it accessible for smaller clubs or clubs with smaller budgets, the leagues with smaller budgets, so that they can also benefit from these supportive tools.”