Football advertising boards technology is making players like Barcelona’s Ronald Araujo disappear | OneFootball

A bizarre incident involving Barcelona’s Ronald Araujo during Wednesday night’s La Liga clash away at Real Betis left viewers very confused.

The centre-back was shepherding the ball out of play while under pressure from Betis substitute Willian Jose when he appeared to completely disappear.

Araujo didn’t go over the advertising boards, so what on earth happened?

Video: Ronald Araujo disappears

How strange.

Araujo appeared to become blurry before vanishing while on the ground.

The 23-year-old was then seen rising to his feet moments later in front of the advertising boards.

Was this a glitch in the matrix?

Reddit:

Why are football's advertising boards making players disappear?

It turns out that there is an explanation for why Araujo disappeared - and it’s because of technology, rather than anything supernatural going on.

Asked in the Reddit thread if the ad panels are green screen, used to show different ads to viewers based on country/region, user Ragnarok_CH explained: “The theory is more or less correct. But these are virtual overlays placed on the TV feed and then it shows a targeted ad depending on the region the game is being broadcasted to. There's no green screen trickery going on though. People in the stadium can still see the ads on the led boards.

“Pro tip: you can always tell if it's a virtual overlay or not if you pay attention to the led boards around the goal net. There's always some sort of artifacts/glitches.”

Indeed, we saw a similar incident earlier this week involving Paris Saint-Germain star Sergio Ramos during a Ligue 1 clash against Reims.

While stood near the goal net, Ramos temporarily appeared to lose his head.

This technology blew football fans' minds

This technology blew football fans’ minds when a video went viral on Twitter in 2021.

Twitter user Oliur wrote: "Today I learned that stadiums can have different ads depending on channel and country."

The video showed how viewers in different parts of the world see different adverts on the boards.

Crazy, eh?

What else do we know about the technology?

The digital wizardry is actually called Virtual Replacement Technology, which allowed broadcasters to add in regional-specific ads over the top of the boards in stadiums.

We truly are living in the future.