Crystal Palace has become the first football club in the world to offer permanent technology to visually impaired fans. 

The Give Vision headset relies on a private 5G network at Selhurst Park, allowing users to sit in their season ticket seats and stream live footage of the game without missing out on the matchday experience. 

The headset requires the user to have some existing vision and works by stimulating photoreceptor cells in the eyes’ retinas. 

The new technology has two functions with the first acting as a giant magnifying glass, allowing fans to zoom in on moments on the pitch and around the stadium. Whilst the second, takes footage live from the host broadcast feed to give fans the opportunity to watch the game in real-time without delay – similar to how someone would watch at home on television. 

According to the NHS, roughly two million people in the UK are living with sight loss, with 340,000 registered as blind or partially sighted.

There are plans in the work to roll out the Give Vision headset technology to other Premier League clubs in the future but for now, hats off to Palace for paving the way and making the game more accessible to fans everywhere.