It is 2020. Theo Walcott will be celebrating his 31st birthday in March and Sir Alex Ferguson is hinting that he will step down as Manchester United manager after 34 years in charge. You make your way to the stadium, passing the time by watching highlights of matches on your phone and voting for the colour of next season’s kit.

Inside, it is a dull match so you order a drink from a virtual waiter. The scent pumped around the stands increases your energy levels so you are annoyed enough to get up and gesture at the referee when he rules out a goal for offside on the advice of the robot linesman. You watch the replay from your at-seat screen from a variety of angles. The robot got the decision right. It always does.

Not so farfetched, according to The Orange Future of Football Report 2008, a collection of predictions from experts who examined how the sport will develop in coming decades.

Football is notoriously sceptical about change and reluctant to adopt any sort of innovation: even goalline technology, which was described as unnecessary by a Fifa committee only last week. While many of the report’s predictions will be anathema to traditionalists, if football is to thrive in years to come it will have to cater for the needs and expectations of people who have never known a world without mobile phones, PlayStations and Sky+. Those people will be running the game in a few years.

A match refereed by robots? Chelsea players would stop jostling referees if they thought they might be electrocuted. Machines to judge offside could be feasible, the report finds, but android referees are only on the distant horizon. “There has to be a human element otherwise things would be far too anal,” Tom Savigar, the director of The Future Laboratory, which produced the report, said.

Satellites know where you are driving your car, so why should they not track David Bentley? “What happens if you apply GPS in shin pads?” Savigar said. And if players had sensors in their pads, referees could determine the degree of contact in tackles and spot divers. No more pinching a couple of yards; laser beams visible to all could mark precisely where free kicks and throw-ins should be taken. Tactical analysis systems such as Pro-Zone and Opta are widely used and will evolve so managers will be able to make ever more detailed and objective judgments about players. Gait analysis will tell managers if a player is angry and about to be sent off.

Pitches will be artificial; so might spectators. Advances in television and mobile technology will make watching on screens increasingly easy and attractive, whether at home or on the move. If Walcott appears to be dribbling at you while you watch the 2018 World Cup in the pub, do not worry: you have not drunk too much, you are just viewing the game in 3D.

It all may mean that clubs struggle to fill their stadiums, so broadcasters could use computer-generated images of people to fill the empty seats. Pie in the sky? How about pie at your seat. Spectators will watch tailored replays on personalised screens and order food and merchandise without having to move. Seats might vibrate to get the crowd on their feet when there is a corner or free kick.

Advances in training methods will mean players become even fitter, quicker and stronger, but it is a short step from Tomorrow’s World to Brave New World. What if footballers had no need for performance-enhancing drugs – because their bodies had been genetically modified?

“Enhancement through gene therapy is almost inevitable,” Dave Reddin, a sports consultant and the former fitness coach of the England rugby team, said. “Our bodies have a buffer zone we operate within but you hear of superhuman efforts in extraordinary circumstances. There is untapped potential in the human body.”

Rather than spending millions on transfers, will Manchester United invest in genetics in a bid to produce the best players? Forget old men in sheepskin coats – scouts of the future will wear lab coats. Physical and psychological assessments of players are common now; in the future, genetic profiling will assess athletic potential and injury risk. “Beyond the next 20 years, we could even see the concept of breeding athletes,” Reddin said. Some players really will be born winners.

Look to the future

The Orange report predicts . ..

— Robotic officials and sensors on players will eradicate wrong decisions
— Advances in sports science and genetics will push players to new performance levels and recovery
— Kit will use nanotechnology – releasing nutrients to replace minerals, kill germs and heal minor injuries
— Shirt sponsor logos will change during the game
— Vast amounts of real-time data will help managers make informed tactical decisions
— Matches will never be postponed because pitches will be artificial and stadiums will use cloud seeding to create their own microclimates
— TV viewers will watch 360 degree personalised images
— Video games will be rendered versions of actual matches so users can play out real scenarios

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