A team made up of robot football players could be ready to challenge and beat the human world champions by 2050 according to one professor.
With VAR dominating all the headlines in the Premier League this season people are questioning just how far technology will go in football, well apparently it won't stop until it beat us.
Speaking, via the Daily Star, after this summer's RoboCup, Professor Maurice Pagnucco revealed the plan is that a team full of robot footballers will be able to compete with the world champions soon enough, saying, "By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup."
The RoboCup is an annual event where teams of robots compete in robot soccer games, although there are also other disciplines, and has been running since 1996.
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This year's event ran during the summer in Sydney, Australia, and Pagnucco explained the competition's purpose adding, "Competition pushes advances in technologies. What we learn from robots playing soccer or navigating a maze can be applied to industry and help us solve difficult real-world problems."
There are six main categories of competition within the cup and in the football alone there are seven leagues, as well as another one in the 'Junior RoboCup.'
If Robots are to be able to beat the human world champions by the middle of the century then we've still got another 30 years and another eight World Cup tournament, maybe England will win one of them.
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France are obviously the World Cup holders at the moment, having beaten Croatia in the final in Russia 16 months ago and Didier Deschamps team will be hoping to double up with the Euros next summer.
One man who won't get the chance to play for the national side again is Karim Benzema. The Real Madrid forward has been absent from the team since 2015 but his recent form has led to talk of him coming back.
However FFF president Noël Le Graet ruled out any hope of that happening, saying, "For me, Benzema is a very good player. I have never criticised his qualities. On the contrary, he is proving again this year at Madrid that he is one of the best players in his position. But the adventure with France is over."
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Do you think we'll see a robot team beating the world champions?
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