Riedel RefCam Referee Camera Enters the Deutsches Museum – 14 g Head-Mounted Unit From the World Cup Final

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by Nino LeitnerToday

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The Riedel RefCam is a 14 g head-mounted camera that clips into a football referee’s communication headset and sends a stabilized, wide-angle view of the match to the broadcast. It is the camera behind FIFA’s Referee View at the 2026 World Cup, and the unit worn at the final is now a museum piece. Riedel Communications has handed it over to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it sits a few steps away from a 7 kg camera from 1839. There is some irony in the timing: a camera with a Riedel badge enters the museum only months after Thomas Riedel bought ARRI, one of the most iconic camera companies in the world.

The RefCam consists of a miniature POV camera on the referee’s headset and a small belt pack that records the footage or transmits it live over a private 5G network. Riedel developed it with two Bundesliga referees as a training tool, and it has since been used live in the Bundesliga, in handball and at FIFA tournaments. On October 21, Thomas Riedel officially handed the RefCam over to the Deutsches Museum. According to the museum, as reported by the German press agency dpa, the unit is the camera that referee Slavko Vinčić wore at eye level on his headset during the World Cup final in the USA, and it recorded Spain’s winning goal in the 106th minute from his point of view. The RefCam is on display in the museum’s “Foto und Film” (photography and film) exhibition, opposite a case with a Daguerre camera from 1839 that weighs 7 kg (15.4 lb). In its own announcement, Riedel adds that the RefCam will also be shown next to an ARRI camera. The RefCam product page lists the head-mounted camera at 14 g (0.5 oz), with electronic image stabilization and a wide-angle lens.

The ARRI camera beside it makes the display more interesting than a simple donation. Riedel Communications is not a camera company. The Wuppertal firm is known for intercoms, fiber networks and private 5G for live production, and the RefCam grew out of the headset it already supplied to referees. Yet in April, Thomas Riedel, founder and sole owner of the Riedel Group, acquired ARRI, a company whose cameras have been in museums for decades. He spoke with us about his plans for the Munich company in an exclusive NAB 2026 interview, together with ARRI Managing Directors Chris Richter and David Bermbach. Six months later, the first camera to enter the Deutsches Museum under his ownership is not an ALEXA. It is a 14 g unit with his own name on it, and it will stand next to an ARRI camera, with ARRI’s headquarters only a few kilometers away.

A camera built by referees

The RefCam did not start as a broadcast tool. Riedel developed it through a joint venture called In-YS (short for “In Your Shoes”) with the German Bundesliga referees Patrick Kessel and Nicolas Winter. The original idea was referee training: officials wanted to review matches from their own position on the pitch, to improve positioning and decision-making. Speaking at the 2025 IHF Men’s Club World Championship, Riedel’s Luca Marx described it as “a tool from referees, for referees”, according to the International Handball Federation.

The design priority follows from that origin. “When designing the RefCam, the main requirement was to build an extremely light camera that does not hinder referees in any way and still delivers excellent broadcast-quality images,” Thomas Riedel said at the handover (our translation from the German dpa report).

Inside the 14 g camera head

The system consists of a miniature POV camera that clips into the referee’s communication headset, plus a separate belt pack that either records locally or transmits the signal. According to the IHF, the camera outputs up to 1080p at 50 Hz and uses electronic image stabilization. An integrated microphone captures the sound on the pitch, and the referee can mute or switch it off. For the handball debut at the Men’s EHF EURO 2026, the announcement from Riedel and the EHF gave the weight of the complete system, camera and transmission belt pack together, as less than 150 g (5.3 oz).

Riedel sells the RefCam in two versions through its Managed Technology division, so customers book it as a service with Riedel engineers rather than buy a camera off the shelf. RefCam Record stores the footage locally for post-match review, training and content production. RefCam Live adds real-time transmission over Easy5G, Riedel’s private 5G network. At the friendly between Germany and Ghana in Stuttgart before the World Cup, an Easy5G core and two base stations carried the RefCam signal, which went to the TV production as SDI and joined a setup of approximately 30 cameras, according to Riedel. That match was the first time RefCam Live was used at an international football match.

From the Bundesliga to the World Cup

The camera’s first Bundesliga appearance came in March 2024, at a match between Eintracht Frankfurt and VfL Wolfsburg. Riedel used the record-only version, and the footage went into a 30-minute program, “Referees Mic’d up – Bundesliga”, that DFL Digital Sports distributed to national and international media partners, as described in Riedel’s press release. The IFAB (International Football Association Board) approved that use in coordination with the DFB, the DFL and the participating clubs.

FIFA tried referee cameras at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, and the IHF credits Riedel with that deployment. Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, said afterwards that the cameras had gone “beyond our expectations”, as quoted by SVG Europe. In February 2026, the IFAB changed Law 5 of the Laws of the Game. Referee cameras, chest-mounted or head-mounted, are now a competition option, with the organizer supplying the cameras and controlling how the footage is used.

At the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA, FIFA called the feature Referee View. According to FIFA, the camera was in use for all group stage games, and it recorded and transmitted HD video and audio in real time. Broadcasters cut it into live coverage and used it after the match, for goals, penalty decisions and long-distance shots. FIFA does not name the camera supplier in that statement. The museum’s account confirms that the camera on Vinčić’s headset at the final, played at MetLife Stadium on July 19, was the Riedel RefCam.

Stabilization in two stages

Footage from a running referee is difficult to use live, even with stabilization in the camera. For the World Cup, FIFA’s technology partner Lenovo added a second stage: an AI-based stabilization process running on servers at the International Broadcast Centre in Dallas. In its own description, Lenovo claims up to 60% less jitter and a 70% smoother camera path without a loss of sharpness, with an output of Full HD at 60 fps and a latency of approximately 3 seconds. These are manufacturer figures, and the delay is a practical point for live directors: the stabilized referee shot arrives several seconds after the other camera angles, which makes it more suitable for replays than for a live cut in a fast attack.

Broadcasters also limited how often they used the shot. Rob Levi, senior director at TNT Sports, told SVG Europe that the director cuts to the referee camera in live coverage only when the moment warrants it, and leaves it out when the game is too fast. Levi also recommended watching the clips with audio, because the sound shows how difficult the referee’s job is.

A perspective television never had

The technical limits matter less than the change in viewpoint. Football on television is watched from far away: the main camera sits high in the stands, and even the tight shots come from long telephoto lenses on the touchline. Both are the view of an observer. The RefCam puts the viewer at eye level in the middle of the pitch, at the speed of the game, with the sound of the players and the referee. A sprint to keep up with a counterattack, a crowd of players around a decision, or a handshake before kick-off look different from there.

We described a similar effect in our detailed look at the cameras of F1: The Movie. Formula 1 on television also comes from distant broadcast cameras, and the cars never look as fast as they are. The small custom cameras that Sony and Apple built into the cockpits for the film put the audience into the driver’s seat, and the sense of speed came from that position, not from higher resolution. The RefCam does the same for football, at 1080p and with a feed that still shakes at times. That imperfection works for it. A shaky, head-mounted frame reads as real, because it looks like what a person on the pitch would see, and the broadcast-quality cameras around it provide the clean coverage. The referee’s view is not a replacement for those angles. It is the one angle no other camera position in the stadium can give.

Beyond football

Riedel has taken the RefCam into other sports. At the 2025 IHF Men’s Club World Championship, three referee pairs wore it in the opening-day matches, the first time a referee camera was used at a major international handball event. The EHF then scheduled RefCam and Easy5G for the semi-finals and medal matches of the Men’s EHF EURO 2026 in Herning, Denmark, with the signal going live into the TV world feed. In basketball, Riedel deployed three RefCam Record units in December 2025 at a game in Germany’s 2. Basketball-Bundesliga, as part of a research project with the German Basketball Federation (DBB) and the German Sport University Cologne on referee decision-making.

Where to see the RefCam

The RefCam is now part of the collection of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, in the “Foto und Film” exhibition. “What personally fascinates me most is the miniaturization of camera technology, combined with the immense increase in image quality,” said Director General Michael Decker (our translation). The museum has documented the development of camera technology for 120 years, and Decker said the RefCam fits well into that history. Riedel does not sell the RefCam at retail. It is available as a managed service for leagues, federations and broadcasters. For more information, please visit the Riedel website.

Did the referee’s view pull you closer to the game during the World Cup, or do the shaky frames put you off? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!

Featured image credit: Bundesliga referee Daniel Schlager wearing a Riedel RefCam. Image credit: Riedel Communications.