How Marseille football club is using new tech to bring fans closer to players – BBC News

[Music]

this is the stad velodrome home of

olympic de marseille one of france's

largest football clubs and to date the

only french team to have won the

champions league in 1993.

i visited on the eve of their final game

of the

2021-22 season a must-win game against

strasbourg that would determine their

qualification for europe's top

competition once again on big match days

like this access to these parts of the

stadium are usually only reserved for a

select few people but here they're using

technology to try and bring supporters

and players a little bit closer together

a range of technologies have been

introduced into the stadium in a bid to

enhance watching a game by enabling

interactions usually only available to

those watching on television

these include cameras with full ball and

player tracking enabling overlays and

statistics to be displayed in real time

along with replays and highlights

oh and there's also a telepresence robot

you have a fully dedicated wireless

infrastructure inside the stadium

because

you are 67 000 people want to share a

very emotion outside the stadium so we

deploy an infrastructure to

complete our 5g network you can have an

app on your smartphone you can

click and collect your food and beverage

so you can order on your on your seat

you have the the replay and you have

five angles with some camera and you can

back forward and see all the action

many broadcasters and clubs around the

world are experimenting with this kind

of in-game content and it remains to be

seen how mainstream it will become

but in the ever ongoing quest for

experiences clubs are wanting to go

further

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i was keen to try out another piece of

kit that's been deployed here

it's called levitra and it's a human

sized digital window enabling

conversations to take place remotely

levitt is a simple way to teleport

the right people to the right place

so

it can be used

like here for

access to the channel

for events

it can be used in the workspace to bring

people closer the screen also has a

built-in capability to live translate

conversations on the fly

participants also have the ability to

draw on the screen as well as share

content with each other in real time

but what are the applications of tech

like this in a football stadium

well marseille have installed levitra's

screens in its players tunnel giving

fans with access to one of its vip

lounges a virtual window into a normally

off-limits area

premier league club manchester city have

introduced vip tunnel access but behind

physical glass

this is the first of its kind virtual

tunnel access

[Music]

i'll be honest once the game kicked off

i was unsure if any tech was needed to

enhance the experience i've watched

games all around the world and it was

certainly one of the loudest stadiums

i've ever been in

[Applause]

it was helped by the fact that marseille

got the results they needed and secured

a champions league spot

after the game i spoke with marseilles

brazilian defender luanne perez

thank you for joining us thank you for

stopping to speak to me

what a night how do you feel

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now unfortunately though he could see my

questions translated into portuguese

someone at the other end pressed the

wrong button and his answers were

translated into french on my screen

but you can definitely see the potential

for tools like this particularly for the

media to be able to carry out interviews

at an emotional time in a language

everyone is most comfortable in

tech is already changing football both

on and off the field

but time will tell how much of an

appetite among regular supporters there

is

for these kinds of interactions

you