Fifa World Cup to get high-tech makeover

Indian IT company Satyam is promising to "transform" the way fans watch football on the back of its World Cup deal with the game's governing body Fifa.

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The Indian outsourcing giant aims to use technology to give football fans the ability to forensically examine every match.

Satyam is discussing "transformational" changes to the televised football with Fifa as part of its deal to be the IT services provider for the 2010 and 2014 Fifa World Cups and two Confederation Cups.

Hari Thalapalli, Satyam's chief marketing officer, said: "We are talking about changing the viewing experience."

Satyam envisages instantaneous 3D CGI recreations of corner kicks and other key match moments, showing how they could have played out differently with a more angled kick or tighter marking.

It also wants to put more detailed statistics on screen by using "business intelligence and analytics" to tap into the underlying numbers.

Thalapalli said Satyam hopes to woo increasingly important European markets by tying itself to the game.

The Fifa deal will see Satyam handling all "mission critical" IT requirements for the football tournaments and the scores of smaller associated matches, including event and facilities management and a network overhaul to allow it to cope with the massive bandwidth demands during the tournaments.

Separately, Satyam has announced it has acquired the market research and customer analytics operations of global heavy-machinery maker Caterpillar.

The company paid $60m for the company, which it will use to launch a market research and customer analytics business unit.