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Comment by markstos | Hacker News Reader

In this case it seems someone could have asked the referee to wear a hat for the reminder of the game, but no one did.

This isn't just a "bad AI" problem, it's failure to plan for a "Plan B" in case automated ball tracking fails for any reason.

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Clothing in sports is highly regulated. For example, FIFA's Equipment Regulations are a hundred pages long[1].

Match officials in football (soccer, if you so will) very rarely wear hats (I can't remember seeing it even once). I'm surprised that I can't find any mention about headwear worn by match officials in the regulations, but regardless, they couldn't just don any old hat.

And as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, there are other things that also can trick up AI, like white socks. There are teams that might have had white socks for a hundred years, should they be forced to change their colours to make life easier for the AI?

[1] https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/equipment-regulation...

Head coverings for referees would generally be a matter for national football associations as is the case with other parts of the uniform other than FIFA controlled international competitions. In the US, USSF lightened it’s stance on hats at lower levels because of skin and eye cancer cases involving “people everyone knew.” But you won’t see it a high level (e.g. professional matches) and young referees seeking to move up are discouraged from it in practice. And because the parallel system of High School and College officiating allow hats, USSF is probably more open than many national associations. The ADA also creates some legal liability as well that is unique to the US.

Well, it sounds like there aren’t a lot of support people for lower tier soccer... no camera operators, and no one even watching the camera feed.

Some soccer teams have bald players. Should they also wear hats?

The AI should be fixed or abandoned in the long term, but it seems a single hat could have made this game much more bearable to watch.

Immediate fix now, better long term solution later.

Year 2060: "Granddad, when did they change the rules of football to say everyone on the field has to wear a dark head covering?"

Perhaps they can cut personal sponsorship deals, as they'll be getting so much more airtime in future

/jk

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