Overview
- Jude Bellingham’s equaliser led to debate after replays showed the ball close to the overhead Spidercam cable, and England went on to win the quarterfinal 2–1.
- FIFA reported that the Connected Ball’s internal sensor, which samples about 500 times per second, recorded no contact or anomalous spike at the moment of the flight, so VAR allowed the goal to stand.
- Norway coach Ståle Solbakken and several players publicly disputed FIFA’s finding, saying the ball’s sudden drop looked like a deflection from the Spidercam cable.
- Technical coverage shows the Connected Ball system is run and stored on FIFA servers with no public raw data access or independent audit trail, which critics say prevents outside verification of match-changing calls.
- The ball tech was first used in 2022 and is separate from FIFA’s unrelated Web3 fan projects, and the controversy is likely to increase calls for clearer rules on third-party audits and data transparency in match decisions.