In the past two decades the use of technology has transformed football and how fans experience it. Changes in the game itself, particularly around the use of Video Assistant Referee (VAR), have raised ongoing questions about the nature of rules and their enforcement. As is often the case, technology has been deployed with the idea that it will resolve controversy by offering clarity by supplementing or replacing human judgment. But the human elements of football, which are ultimately what make it operate as a sport and spectacle, have a way of overtaking these promises for technology. And, as is also the case in most other realms, technology has a way of creating as many new problems as it solves old ones. 

Digital technology has also profoundly reshaped the experience of watching soccer, from how live matches are experienced in the stadium and on screens to how moments from games are curated and shared, especially on social media platforms. While much of this sharing simply takes the form of enthusiastic circulation of clips of goals, exciting moves, and memes, social media are also an arena for homophobic, racist and sexist commentary, and an important space of political intervention and debate. 

Information technology has also increasingly shaped the use of sports science in training and player evaluation. The rise of football analytics has transformed the process of talent identification and team management, on and off the pitch. While sports like baseball, NFL football, and cricket are fundamentally reliant on statistics and big data for strategy, performance, and consumption, the adoption of increasingly sophisticated technologies in world football is creating new forms of measurement, decision making, and engagement.