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2010-11 Supercopa de Espana

First leg on the right side should be "Real Madrid vs. Barcelona" and the reverse in the second leg since Madrid won the copa del rey, whose winner always have the first leg at home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.74.170.145 (talk) 08:11, 29 April 2011

Proposal for change of WP:NFOOTY wiki policy

Hello all, I am making this point as a continuation of the Albania paragraph here (permanent link). I believe that Albania's case is the same as Macedonia's and Montenegro's. As far as I know neither is fully professional. I believe we have to change the requirements of WP:NFOOTY, because otherwise we'll have to delete hundreds of Macedonian, Montenegrin, and Albanian players.

As a matter of fact I don't find the notability for players fair at all: the Albanian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian players compete against fully professional players in European Leagues and all of them have professional contracts, but still their respective leagues are not called fully professional, because there is sometimes government intervention. I believe we have to make a change in the notability requirements, because as it is, many players' articles will have to be deleted, and much work will go to waste. Not necessarily the level of soccer in these countries is worse than that of other countries with professional leagues though. Besides, the Albanian league will soon be professional, there are some indications on that, and I can bring the sources, so those articles will have to be written all over again.

Right now one of the best hopes of Albanian soccer players Armando Vajushi, is considered for deletion, but I am sure that his article will have to be written again, as soon as he will start playing in a foreign "professional" league.

I want to know your opinions before I go ahead and make a proposal, which will consist in having NFOOTY accept fully all players of top European Leagues, given the importance of soccer in all European countries. Thank you. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 19:29, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I would also add that Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, and Estonia have the same problem. Still these countries have very developed soccer, whose reflection on[REDACTED] would be hindered by the wikipolicy of the "professionalism".

In addition, the wikipolicy of "professionalism" of the league excludes from notability many players that played in the past in times where there was no professionalism required, rather, professionalism was prohibited: that's the case of Eastern Europe, but also in Western Europe. We are excluding athletes that have made the history of the sport. I am by nature an inclusionist, but I am rather interested to listen to other people's opinion. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 20:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

If memory serves, this has been proposed and rejected before. The main issue being leagues of micronations like San Marino or Andorra. Even the average player in the Albanian Superliga does not meet WP:GNG which is the purpose of WP:NSPORT, to evaluate whether a footballer is likely to meet GNG. Likewise, the qualifying rounds for the Europa and Champions Leagues (I assume this is what you mean by European Leagues) have been established as not granting notability for the same reason. The players that compete in them generally do not receive significant coverage, at least not simply for competing in these rounds. As for deleting articles that will probably become notable at some point, this is a non issue. Almost any admin will restore a previously deleted article if you can demonstrate that it has since become notable. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:43, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Also may I recommend that this discussion take place WT:FOOTY so as ensure wider participation. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:45, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I think its a shame how England's 5th tier can somehow be more important than Albania's top flight! People spend time and effort creating pages for players in the top leagues of the 'lesser countries' and to have all that taken away makes you wonder why you even bother. I have personally created many pages on Albanian footballers and have seen a lot of them deleted, which is a real shame and a let down from my prespective. And as for Armando Vajushi, I have been in the process of updating his page as well as I can, especially now with a lot of top teams after him, but we're only human and I have AS exams to worry about. Oltianruci (talk) 22:59, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I do agree to an extent with that sentiment. Although in fairness to the system, fifth-tier players tend only to get articles if they clearly meet the GNG, and a first team regular in League Two would get equivalent coverage to top division players of many smaller nations. That said, Estonian football is probably below the Welsh football pyramid and the Scottish First and Second Divisions in terms of quality and publicity, so the problem is not entirely one of UK-centrism.

The black-and-white nature of NFOOTBALL is at least partly to blame. But the real problem is that the primary condition on which that page exists—NSPORTS serving as an advisory suppliment, not a replacement, to the GNG—is not adhered to by 90% of sports editors. Many of the deleted players probably won't meet the GNG, but several will. Nonetheless, players from non-ATHLETE leagues are frequently voted for deletion by English editors on NFOOTBALL grounds regardless of GNG arguments, and more often than not deleted by clueless vote counters. —WFC— 01:35, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

As noted above, the proposal has been made several times before, and rejected each time. We have to draw the boundary somewhere, and the line betwen fully-professional and part-time is easily the clearest we have. Relaxing the rules for some leagues but not others relies solely on opinions of which leagues are notable, rather than facts. I think something to bear in mind is (as I've said before) if football was popular enough in these countries for the non-international players to be notable, then they would probably be able to support a fully professional league (as many less wealthy countries do). Number 57 09:02, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

PS - to Oltianruci - players in the fifth tier in England do not get articles, because the fifth tier is not fully-professional. If you see any that have only played at Conference level, then please feel free to nominate them for deletion. Number 57 09:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

What about other contintents where soccer is "important", such as South America? Would you want to see articles on every player in the top league of Suriname, French Guiana etc.? No, of course not - this proposal is just biased, pro-Eastern Europe - something which we need to avoid at all costs. GiantSnowman 11:15, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

@Giant Snowman, we will make the case continent by continent. Each continent is different, but this is a discussion for Europe only. Once we reach an agreement on Europe, then we can move on to other continents and the proposal might reach a consensus for Europe first and then we can reach agreements on the rest, or we move on Europe only. I don't understand your argument why this would be a "biased", and "pro-Eastern Europe" argument: The world, whether you like it or not, has different political histories, which have reflected on sports too, but not necessarily this should be reflected negatively in wikipedia, i.e. shutting down the "non-professional" leagues, because western "professional" leagues are more notable. The case is not more complicated than that. Sports were financed (and still are to some extend) in Eastern European countries because of the political history of those countries. Now can you explain to me why would state-financed athletes be less notable than magnate sponsored athletes? I understand that many people don't want to make politics talk here, but in this case, notability of the league is connected purely to the political status of the country where it belongs, and it's downright politics.

@Number 57: I really like your line of reasoning. It's exactly about the opinion of which leagues are notable that I want to make a case for the following reasons:

1. Professionalism shouldn't make you notable per se. Who said that a professional player is more notable than a non professional? I understand that you should draw a line, but IMO the line is incorrectly excluding relevant athletes fo now. My proposal suggests that the line should be drawn as far as notability of the leagues is concerned, because professionalism does not equate notability. Soccer is sport number one in Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Latvia (this one participated in a major tournament), and Albania, and these are not minor countries (I'll list the minor countries of Europe below).

2. If the case is made for the league (whether it is fully professional or not), it should more so be made on the players themselves. As far as I am concerned, all the players in Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia are fully professional, it's the leagues that aren't, the reason being that there are certain teams that are supported by the government (central or local), because they were born into the government and they are historically supported by the government. Why should we delete professional players articles when the problem is with their leagues? E.g. Partizani Tirana a very famous Albanian team, now relegated in the third league of Albania, and Dinamo Tirana, are owned by the government, and so are the rest of the teams (local municipalities), and this is in order to protect local soccer (although in my opinion it is killing it). This is due to political background of the countries that I am citing, and[REDACTED] should take that into account.

3. Let's take a dive into the past Crvena Zvezda players of 1991 would all fall under the GNG, but if GNG wouldn't apply they per se shouldn't be notable, because the Yugoslavian league wasn't professional in 1991. Same thing for FC Dinamo Bucureşti and Steaua of the 1980s, Dinamo Moscow and Dinamo Tbilisi of the 1970s or. Should we delete the players of such teams that won the European cups in those years? What about their local opponents that played top soccer at that time and placed second or placed better than the above teams in national competitions? (btw, all the teams that I just cited in this paragraph were winners of European cups).

4. If in the European cups currently teams from not fully professional leagues play and compete against teams that participate in "fully professional leagues", why should the latter's players be considered notable and not the former? This is a discrimination that only Misplaced Pages is making: in fact FIFA and UEFA themselves have in their competitions (European Cups) teams that participate in national fully professional leagues and who play against teams that play in national leagues which are not fully professional, and that is because these teams can more than match one another.

Proposal for change in WP:NFOOTY: I understand that there is a line to be drawn, but as wikipedians we clearly are strong in geography aren't we? I will propose the following: if we exclude 7 European countries which are clearly minor and each one of them has less than 500,000 people (i.e. Malta, Luxembourg, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Iceland, San Marino and the Far Oer islands), all the European countries' leagues should be considered per se notable. Thank you.--Doktor Plumbi (talk) 11:22, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, you are implementing POV & OR here; why exclude Iceland, when football is massive in that country. Your proposal remains flawed, I'm afraid. If something ain't broke, don't fix it. GiantSnowman 11:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I personally would include all 7 countries, Iceland first of the 7, but I want to reach consensus, and if some European countries need to be excluded, because they are considered minor, then we have to draw the line at the population size of the country. That population cutoff may be of 300,000 and Iceland would be included in this case. The reason why I make this proposal is just because I think the notability standards are broken and need to be fixed. Can you please address the other points that I highlighted above, or is your concern exclusively focused on Iceland? And here yes, I bring my personal point of view, which will encounter other wikipedians point of view. If there will be the case for consensus than the notability guidelines of[REDACTED] will change. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 11:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

My concern is that you are inventing cut-off points for player notability, when one which is easily defined & referenced (i.e. fully-professional) already exists. How on earth does population size affect notability? GiantSnowman 12:08, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm just suggesting them, if the community point will be that of excluding really minor leagues, such as that of Liechtenstein, or San Marino. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 18:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

<reduce indent> Just to stir the pot slightly, I should note that the Conference National, with the relegation of Histon, Altrincham and Eastbourne now has only one non-full time team (Barrow AFC), who themselves are going to 4 days a week. The newly promoted teams are all pro/turning pro. Now I think that's pretty good justification for calling the Conference a 'fully professional league' is it not? So maybe (presuming we don't think that the Conference is notable enough for player article creation) we ought to rethink 'professional' as the major guideline. Pretty Green (talk) 13:35, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

In that case, the Conference National will be a professional league which receives significant coverage; what's non-notable about that? GiantSnowman 13:48, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hayes & Yeading United are fully-pro?! Huh, I didn't know that. I didn't think they could be with their attendances. If the Conference National does become fully professional one day then so be it. The fact that demand isn't there for top level competition in other countries is not Misplaced Pages's fault. Argyle 4 Life 13:53, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily demand and supply are higher when there is market competition. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 18:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually today's Non-League Paper has an entire article about how one of the promoted clubs, Telford, are not going full-time, and it goes on to state that, as a result there will be 17 (out of 24) full-time teams in the ConfNat next season. So (unless we have reason to believe that a national newspaper specifically dedicated to the non-league scene is misinformed on a massive scale) the Conference remains a long long way from being fully pro..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:14, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Just a minor important note. I see continuosly being mentioned the Macedonian First League, but everyone is missing the fact that their league IS considered professional, while the others mentioned in same group aren´t. I´m not saying anything about supporting or not any of the sides here, just reminding everyone about this fact. FkpCascais (talk) 17:35, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, @Doktor Plumbi, despite simpatizing with your cause, you should be more carefull and precise about your arguments, because you loose points and allow other participants to accuse you of OR and POV because of untrou arguments such as about 1991 Red Star (Crvena Zvezda) players for exemple, where you say "they would all fail GNG", because most (if not all) of them wouldn´t fail, for several reasons, among them the fact that most were national team players already, and because some had already had spells in pro leagues before 1991, so please avoid making uprecise comparisons. Not even needing to remind you about the quality the Yugoslav league had back then, and the fact that it was allways qualified within top 10 league ranking in Europe.

Now, regarding the question itself, as Oltianruci may possibly know, I have been making efforts to source, complete and improve many articles about players that play in Albania and other countries in the region, despite the fact that I was aware that Albanian league was not considered pro. I did it because I knew most were about better players that by time someone checking noteced them, those players were probably already playing abroad in some pro league, or at least the national team. Now, that was in a time when only the best players had articles, but seems that now we have entire medium and small size clubs from Albanian league having all their players with articles, well, that obviously becomes a problem, and it does make me think that possibly only the ones that played in pro leagues, and the ones with national team caps, should have an article. Otherwise we are having an enormous number of unnotable players with careers hard to find, complete and follow, and we do want to avoid having that kind of biographies here. Also, editors making numerous articles should be familiarised with the policies before making them, and having them made can not be at any point an argument used as excuse for not following principles. FkpCascais (talk) 17:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

@FkpCascais, I believe you misunderstood: I said that Crvena Zvezda players of 1991 would all fall under the GNG, but if GNG wouldn't apply they per se shouldn't be notable, because the Yugoslavian league wasn't professional in 1991. Probably you misread fall as fail. All I am saying is that according to the current wiki policy Crvena Zvezda players are notable only because of GNG, not because of inherent notability of the league where they participated (that league wasn't professional). So the way the policy is worded, they wouldn't be notable if they hadn't won that cup, and neither would be the players of other fantastic Yugoslavian teams, who honorably played and often beat Crvena Zvezda itself at that time. Hope I clarified my thought. As far as the help that you have given for the players, even Albanian, that is a fantastic job that you have done, hence my invitation to you for this discussion. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 12:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the issue of professionality, may I point out that WP:NFOOTY as it is worded currently would exclude any and all players who have competed in Communist-Bloc top flight leagues? None of those leagues was professional in the usual sense of the term. May I request that a) we add some paragraph defining what professionalism means in this context, if not in the policy itself, then at least in the list of professional leagues or b) we change the policy in the sense proposed by the Doktor Plumbi. Just sayin' Madcynic (talk) 11:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

That's absolutely right. I've pointed out in the past how the line between professionals and non-professionals very much blurred in many leagues around Europe (and probably even more so in Africa and other places). In addition, amateur teams are known to have appeared in Scottish top flight for example, yet nobody ever seriously considered demoting that league like we did with Bosnia or Albania or some others in which players in major clubs are all professional. The issue is further complicated by the fact that "professional" may mean lots of different things. Most players in the Croatian second level are in fact paid for playing, but the amount of money they get only covers their living and traveling expenses. There are also clubs which claim to be professional but which haven't paid their players in 5 or 6 months and then there are youth players who are on an apprenticeship contract who are specifically banned for signing long-term contracts but who are eligible to appear in matches. It's practically impossible to tell who is professional and who is not over there. In addition to this you have ex-communist countries in which players were not considered professional in the modern sense, which is the reason why communist countries dominated the Olympic tournaments between the 1950s and 1980s, so you have players who appeared in hundreds of top level matches and have won lots of silverware but have never a) appeared for the national team and b) were not "professional" as we define it today. As for Croatia there has been a lot of talk concerning the promotion-relegation chaos at the en of season and I've seen journalists mentioning that weaker teams are required to have at least "51% of their playing staff on professional contracts" in order to appear in the top league - which means that in theory you might get an amateur player on the pitch in a game, even though virtually every single player with clubs which are league regulars are professionals and if you are ever going to see an amateur it will only be in one or two of the most weakest of sides. I sympathize with Plumbi because we've been through all this earlier in the cases of Montenegro and Bosnia and the issue had been debated to death with no clear outcome. So I suggest we move the focus from the impossible task of taking it upon ourselves to determine which leagues are professional (as opposed to "professional") and probably talk more about WP:GNG and how it applies to footballers, in particular, what does "significant coverage" mean? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of bios out there which consist of only an info box and links to online stats databases. And even though I'm sure many of these players do have a professional contract in their pocket, I'm not sure that alone should even merit an article. I admit I used to be more of an inclusionist before but I'm growing more and more convinced that the bar should be raised and the guidelines changed to focus on the question whether the article really has potential to develop. There's at least a few dozens of players who are well-covered by the press in just about any country and I don't see why they wouldn't merit an article just because some of the playrs they play against did not sign a contract - and on the other hand there is a huge number of nearly anonymous players in fully professional leagues whose articles have virtually no expansion potential beyond just typing in raw data taken from databases. In my view the only criteria which should grant automatic notability are full international caps and major honours won. If these are not applicable then significant coverage should be evidenced to keep it. Timbouctou (talk) 12:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we are in danger of forgetting what WP:NFOOTY is. It is a threshold that we use to allow us (often erroneously, I would suggest, and Timouctou would seem to concur) to conclude that an individual will have sufficient written about him elsewhere to meet GNG. Failure to meet NFOOTY does not per se justify deletion, and NFOOTY excludes no article from the encyclopaedia: failure to meet NFOOTY, where there is no evidence of meeting GNG does however. It should be noted that GNG states Sources are not required to be available online, and they are not required to be in English. So if football is a high profile sport in Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia, then presumably there will be articles ion the press and sporting media in those countries about many of the players in those leagues that will easily meet GNG. We don't need to abandon a shortcut notability test to allow players to meet an alternative test. Kevin McE (talk) 12:46, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

While the professionalism of the league is not the worse criterion, it is not necessarily the best, and, furthermore it shouldn't be the only criterion. I suggest that we keep professionalism as a criterion, because I agree that it's overall a good indicator of notability, but, in addition, how about we add that the top league of each European country (and we may exclude the very minor states, 5, 6, or 7), although not professional, is inherently notable? This would also include the Eastern bloc teams of the 1950s through 1990s, which had mighty players, some of whom the best of Europe in those years: they didn't become good at soccer because of some strange reason, but because of a very good football system and leagues (which weren't professional). At least in Europe, each and every soccer player, if he has ever played in his top league, has coverage: you just need to dig in the magazines and sports publications published in those years, which were plenty of info: not necessarily everything can be in internet now.--Doktor Plumbi (talk) 13:09, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

IMO we already have too many articles about footballers as it is and this fact has been raised by non-footy editors in the past. The sheer amount would not be a problem if the proportion of quality articles was greater but it is currently abysmally small. So discussions like these essentially boil down to someone arguing for some reasoning which would only enable the creation of a mass of pointless stubs. If we are to re-think our criteria than we should move towards a solution which will not result in even more stubs added. WP:GNG is the top criteria for any biography and if there are Albanian players who satisfy it, then failing NFOOTY is irrelevant. If you want a specific Albanian player to survive then introduce references which prove significant coverage in reliable sources in Albanian. If there aren't any, why should we care if the league is professional, semi-pro or amateur? Also, why would you ignore some countries based on purely arbitrary criteria beats me. Surely there is a handful of Icelandic or Sanmarinese players who are much talked about in their local media outlets. And why is professionalism a criterion at all? Do all professional dentists deserve an article? Bricklayers? Musicians who make a living by playing other bands' songs at funerals and weddings are mostly professional but they clearly fail WP:MUSIC. How is kicking a ball around the pitch any different? Timbouctou (talk) 13:21, 22 May 2011(UTC)

You are basically saying that GNG should override NFOOTY, which is already accepted in Misplaced Pages. However it sounds that you have, like me, a concern, that professionalism should not be the only criterion, correct? The point I am making is to keep professionalism as a criterion, but it should not be the only. Can you come up with a proposal as to how the rewording of the policy should be made? --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 14:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone will come up with a proposal, because almost all of us are happy with the current system. Please just accept that there is a clear boundary which is adhered to (professionalism). Your attempt to redraw the boundary based on your own personal opinion of what is notable is not very helpful. We all have our own opinions, but professionalism is a clear dividing line. As I said above, clearly football is not of sufficient interest of the populations of those countries to make the players notable, otherwise they could support a professional league (Estonian matches for instance only attract a couple of hundred spectators - are players playing in those conditions notable?). Number 57 14:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that NFOOTY has done more harm than good. Its purpose is mainly to enable editors who are unfamiliar with football to be able to quickly determine whether a newly created stub might potentially develop into a good article, since deleting stubs just because they are stubs is not allowed per wiki policy. But by choosing professionalism of the league as the main criterion we've actually created a situation which allows that many players whose articles could have been expanded by adding existing coverage in local sources to be deleted on sight while at the same time cementing the existence of thousands of stubs for fairly anonymous players from professional leagues which were hardly anywhere dealt with extensively. The assumption was probably that if a player plays in a pro league than there must be some source which talks about him in more detail. In a nutshell, we've created a situation in which lazy editors can add hundreds of stubs which remain stubs for years to come while on the other hand lazy admins using N:FOOTY as a guide can delete articles wholesale. So either NFOOTY should be dropped entirely leaving only GNG (which would result in a lot of confusion as non-footy editors are less likely to know what separates routine coverage in databases and match reports from significant coverage in reliable sources) OR NFOOTY should be rewritten completely according to a whole new set of criteria which would not include professionalism of the league the player plies his trade in. Our rules are currently way too lenient when it comes to western European leagues and at the same time way too strict when it comes to the rest of the world. So the question here is what criterion are stubs which might evolve into something useful likely to satisfy? In my opinion these would include appearing for a national team or winning major honours, defined as the top national league or the national cup or appearing in a continental competition beyond the qualifying rounds or in the Olympics. This is of course open for discussion but the bottom line is that if a biographical stub does not satisfy any of the above why would we believe that any detailed coverage of his life and times exist out there? P.S. Number57's comment is a perfect illustration of the problem here - the reason why "almost all of us are happy" with the current system is that almost all of "us" are English. Timbouctou (talk) 14:31, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with you here. The assumption that players will pass GNG as they play in a professional league seems a valid one to me. However, as said sources do not have to be in the English language, don't you think that the assumption "player plays in top flight, hence there is coverage" is a valid one as well? For my part, I have forcefully ignored Nfooty when editing East German players from before 1990, and have always taken notability for granted if they have played in the top flight, even if I could not easily make an argument per GNG. Just saying, Nfooty is flawed, and the main reason no one's bothered to change it is because it's so darned difficult to change policy. I think an additional "or in the top football league of any country" would solve the issue - even if this theoretically allows for dozens or hundreds of articles on Sanmarinese or Andorran players... Madcynic (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I don't think that either appearing in a fully professional OR a top level league is a good indicator of notability at all. There are stubs out there about players who appeared in a handful top level matches and that's their main claim to fame. They are never going to get expanded because to be honest there's nothing to expand them with as their careers were largely unremarkable. But NFOOTY, which was created so that it satisfies the English system in which there's a clear division between professional and amateur football, applies to them as well. The thing with smaller leagues is that you usually have a few clubs which are supported by many fans and are regular title contenders and they mainly employ professional players and are covered in the media significantly. Other smaller clubs in the league are vastly underrepresented in the media. Putting them all in the same basket is not really something I a happy with. Plus, I fail to see why we take it for granted that a player who spent his career in English 2nd or 3rd level is likely to have more local coverage than a player who won the Albanian top level. Timbouctou (talk) 14:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Timbou in his last comment, and about what he said about bigger title winning clubs in Albania. That is indirectly what I meant in my earlier comment, that basically goes around the idea that I tried to improve the articles of the players from major clubs, and I agreed on that, while I don´t agree in having numerous articles from minor Albanian Superliga clubs. It is hard to explain and create a rule on it, but it goes about the obvious difference about players that play in the top 3 or 4 clubs and the ones that play in bottom ones. However, I must confess I had a lot of difficulties in finding sources, and all I ended was finding only a few usefull source which were basically AlbaniaSoccer and Albanian Federation website. If we change somehow the criterium to include players from Albanian league, we´ll definitelly need dedicated editors to find English language sources and to somehow overview the editing on related articles. Otherwise we´ll end up having numerous biographies about relatively unknown players who´s information is hard to find, check, confirm and complete. FkpCascais (talk) 17:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I also perfectly agree with Timbou's feelings on "professionalism" and he is right on in many points. @FkpCascais: If this can be of any help: there are three major sports websites for Albania, which are only soccer dedicated (besides the only one in English, Albaniasoccer, owned by UEFA journalist, Fation Pandovski, who is a resident in the United States, and dozens of others who have a section with soccer and sports coverage): they are albania-sport.com, sportishqiptar.com.al, and sportekspres.com. All three of them have a search engine where you can find sources for a specific player. But my arguing here is not related in general to the editor who is going to double check the work of an editor who writes on Albanian players, or other less notable leagues, it is more extended: If an editor needs to go after Oltianruci, he needs to know that, first, Oltianruci has autopatrolled rights, and second, he is the author of many players, so he has some experience on it, so some good faith should be put on this editor, rather than putting for deletion his work (see here for the last 9 AfD requests, besides that already brought up for Armando Vajushi). Right now all of these players started by him are considered for deletion and rightly so based on the current policy, and thus I took a decision to start this discussion to protect his work, and the biographies of the players that play in the top league of Albania, and also the work of other editors who will write about famous Eastern Europeans who participated in top leagues, when these countries were under communist regimes, or in countries where the leagues are not professional, but they are still the top leagues of the country.

I will wait until a more experienced editor than me will make a proposal, I already put forward mine and there was no direct agreement on it, but in my opinion, we first need to have a structured discussion. Can we first of all discuss as to whether we can discuss the European soccer first, or should we change the whole NFOOTY policy as a whole? If we make no changes at all, do we really believe that we are rendering a good service to Misplaced Pages? --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I thank you very much for your response Doktor Pllumbi. I unswered you at your talk page about my doubts on the sources, that way opening a specific discussion with you there, and also making it more simple for other editors to express their view on this issue here. FkpCascais (talk) 22:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually it seems like the Albanian League is fully professional. Problem was I didn't know, and they don't even have a website, but the top Albanian League, actually exists: and Vinie007 properly sourced WP:FPL. Sorry for the big mess. Albania shouldn't be a problem now. The problems for the players under communist regimes persist though. --Doktor Plumbi (talk) 19:57, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Timbouctou. Although despite my opposition to it, even I concede that NFOOTBALL is potentially a good starting point. The two—fatal—flaws with it? One: a number of people treat it as the be-all-and-end-all. Three or four editors (who I don't need to name) actively go around creating literally hundreds of one line articles on the sorts of low-key players that Timbouctou describes. And two: there is pretty much no latitude whatsoever for notability on GNG grounds, which is all that should be needed to ensure that relatively high profile Eastern European players can have articles, without needing to open the floodgate for the rest. —WFC— 08:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

NFOOTBALL (or more specifically WP:FPL) is a potentially useful starting point for determining notability, and I agree that it is applied in too fixed a manner i.e. minor stub articles being deemed notable, and articles for players who do not meet the specific NFOOTBALL criteria having their sources cast aside (only local coverage, stats database etc) too easily. I disagree with some posters above who say the current system is not broken. I believe there are a number of issues with it, and this thread is just the latest time recently it's been brought up. I'd like to see a few more of the respected editors at WP:Footy respond here, as hopefully we are not too far off coming up with revised notability criteria for footballers. Eldumpo (talk) 08:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

One suggestion

Here's my tuppence worth, so please bear with me. WP:NFOOTY may not be perfect, but IMO it's the simplest and most equitable solution we have, and until someone presents a more viable option it's the guideline that should continue to be used. As I've said once or twice before, a footballer's notability isn't based on how many journalists write about them, it's generally based on what they achieve on the field. Reaching a standard that enables you to play as a full-time professional is a good marker, just as a politician "makes it" by getting elected to parliament, or a pop musician makes it by getting a song into the charts.

Now having said that, there is room for improvement. At the moment, this guideline is black-and-white and makes no distinction between the differing levels of play - the top four divisions in England are fully professional, but I'm sure everyone would agree an appearance in League Two is in no way equal to an appearance in the Premiership. Perhaps one way to address this would be to implement some sort of sliding scale to take into account the differences between levels of play. I'm not a particular fan of the "one game and you're in" approach, so for a four-tier system I was thinking of a minimum threshold something along the lines of 5 games (level 1) / 10 games (level 2) / 20 games (level 3) / 30 games (level 4) - these are just rough ballpark figures that I'm throwing up for discussion. This would be adjusted for countries that have less than four professional divisions, and this could even be extended to include top-level semi-professional leagues so that long-established players in these countries could be included.

Comments please? —BETTIA—  14:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that the bright-line test of professionalism in NFOOTY is not perfect, but it appears to align most closely with articles that are likely to pass the GNG. I've noticed the concerns raised above about Albanian and Macedonian league footballers, but I've tried to find sufficient sources to write articles that pass the GNG on such players with little success. By contrast, it is normally fairly easy to write an article about a 3rd level English footballer that passes the GNG. Since we need to satisfy WP:V and WP:RS, it's always going to be difficult to write articles about footballers who make their living the Gabonese, Surinamese or Albanian leagues, and it's time better spent elsewhere. With respect to Bettia's recommendation, I raised a similar idea several months ago, but no one felt comfortable applying an arbitrary number of matches standard. I think it makes sense (I recommended such an idea) because a person with only 1 substitute appearance in the Premier League is unlikely to satisfy the GNG. Jogurney (talk) 15:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps there should be some discussion on what consitutes significant coverage from a football perpsective. Does an appearance in a notable stats website (e.g. Soccerway) or book (e.g. Rothmans) count? Does the coverage have to be non-local, and does that therefore mean it must be national? Does the coverage need to be more than reporting a transfer or a mention in a match report? Can you provide any good examples of players who meet GNG but have never played above the English 3rd level? Given the amount of coverage the Premier League receives, I would have thought a player with one sub appearance would satisfy GNG - are there any players in this category? Eldumpo (talk) 16:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Daniel Karbassiyoon is an example of a person with very few appearances in the fully-pro English leagues. He has some notoriety now as a US scout for Arsenal, but during his playing days, I don't remember him receiving much coverage (outside of US observers following Arsenal's youth team). Perhaps this article can be brought up to satisfy the GNG, but I use it as an example since I'm somewhat familiar with the player. Jogurney (talk) 18:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I do agree there needs to be some change as it cant be ok that lower levels in england are notable but top Leagues in other countries are not but i feel that going down the route of they have to have made a certain number of appearances would be wrong. Surely the top league in a country should be notable although there needs to be sources to back that up.18:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)Warburton1368 (talk)

(edit conflict) Thanks for providing the example, although given that he played a pro game for Arsenal (and League games for Ipswich) he is not a 3rd-level only player. Just to try and understand what might be regarded as significant sources though, does the Roanoke article count as it could be construed as only local coverage? The Bleacher Report site appears to be some kind of blog site, and the BBC source is only a brief mention in a match report. Do other people think this player meets GNG as it stands, as WP:NFOOTY assumes if you hit the football criteria you are deemed to hit GNG, but I'm not convinced that link has been proven in practice. Eldumpo (talk) 19:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't thnik Karbassiyoon's article passes the GNG, but it probably could (I recall seeing an article in a major US newspaper regading his scouting career). However, if his career consisted only of his time at Arsenal, I can't see how it would generate enough coverage to pass the GNG. Jogurney (talk) 01:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that Bettia's proposal is the one making the most sense so far. The fact that a player can make 1 appearance for Burton Albion and automatically gets a[REDACTED] article. I can't think of another example from a different project in[REDACTED] where someone that does something as unnoteworthy as getting paid to kick a ball and automatically gets an article. It would be a good idea if someone had a go at a rewrite and posted it on here for discussion so it can be made better. Delusion23 (talk) 19:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

would we then have to apply this new guideline to already-created articles? What about players who have disputed stats? By trying to change this guideline we're creating more hassle for ourselves, when NFOOTY shouldn't be our primary concern. Don't forget that our #1 notability threshold is the GNG, and as long as it meets that, an article is notable - it doesn't matter whether they've played 500 games or 1 game, whether they've played in the Premier League or in the Guam League. GiantSnowman 20:26, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the media couverage and ammount of sources, there is an important issue I already raised at Doktor Pllumbi talk page. It goes basically about the fact that I have found great difficulties to find information on Albanian league past seasons. What do I mean by this? I mean that this way we are having a great number of Albanian league players articles that fall into recentism in case of not having played in any other pro league. We end up having numerous biographies that pretty much have only information about the current season, with possible inclusion of only one or two seasons from past, that are in vast majority impossible to check, and that ends up being impossible for another editor to complete the career of the player in question. That, for exemple, doesn´t happend with players that play in Serbian or Croatian top leagues, who´s entire careers information (even if played domestically all the time) are quite easy to find. But for players that played in Albanian league their entire careers that doesn´t happend, since they don´t have a database for their seasons, and that makes the biographies of many of those players very incomplete, thus not sure if worth existing. So basically, only players who played for the national team, thus having their career stats avaliable at NFT, become worth having an article. FootballDatabase is another website that done some effort in following the careers of such players, however mistakes are often, and they don´t provide season stats. Another option is being a member of Playerhistory, but again, they ften have complete only the squads of the major clubs, and most well known players careers, with the ones less known often incomplete. Not sure how to simplify this and make it easy to understand, resumingly, I find availability of information, not only of present, but past seasons data as well, crutial for having a good quality articles. FkpCascais (talk) 21:16, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

While I appreciate there are flaws with NFOOTY, we have to be careful that we don't make it too complicated. WP:NHOCKEY has a similar system to the proposal being suggested here which seems to work quite well, but ice hockey is much more of a minority sport with fewer professional leagues to worry about. How are a set of arbitrary thresholds going to be decided for over a hundred different domestic leagues of varying strength? J Mo 101 (talk) 22:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: It would be less hassle if the same people who say it will be hassle weren't simultaneously mass-creating one-line stubs on one-time subs.

Given that it is impossible to legislate for people's behavior, I think Bettia's suggestion has merit. The GNG would most likely still be successfully applied, for instance in the case of Federico Macheda after two league games, Roy Essandoh if you take his trial period at Wycombe in isolation, or the sort of substantial coverage Jimmy Davis got posthumously, coupled with a playing record that took him close to the threshold anyway.

I would however make the bright-line test even simpler than Bettia has proposed, using the same thresholds for all top-tier professional divisions, a bigger threshold for all second-tier professional divisions, etc. Granted, this would equate the Premier League to the top division of Azerbaijan, but so does the current system, and GNG discretion would give articles to a significant proportion of Premier League players anyway. —WFC— 02:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

WFC, I agree with all theory you are all saying, but you are not taking into consideration an important aspect. How are we gonna apply any sort of trsholds for leagues that you can´t find data anywhere? WFC, would you know how to find (or confirm) 50 Azerbaijani league caps for a player that only played in Azerbaijani league?! Or Albanian league, or Namibian league... We have to include source availability into this discussion. FkpCascais (talk) 03:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

A lack of a reliable statistical source might be an issue for some leagues. But if it is, it is already, and I don't see how this would make a big difference. If a reliably sourced article is written on the reasonable assumption that a player meets the threshold, then the sources would presumably meet the GNG anyway, making the question over whether he has or hasn't moot. If an article's notability isn't reliably sourced in the first place, it shouldn't be here in the first place. Again, I don't see how changing the guideline would have a bearing on that. —WFC— 04:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It is just that making a kind of treshold for some leagues is like making cars without existing fuel for them... I mean, I am perfectly OK and very supprotive of it (without reliable sources confirming X Sian top league caps, no article), I am just being a bit of devil´s lawyer here and antecipating difficulties. I just think that we want be solving the issues rised here by Doktor Pllumbi, because we´ll end up again having numerous articles for Albanian league footballers, with reliable sources for their existence, however with the impossibility of sourcing them a necessary number of league caps. It is just a fact constatation. FkpCascais (talk) 07:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

But you are falling into the trap again, the one that we are working so hard to correct. NFOOTBALL should not be the only way of measuring notability. It should function as a simple threshold, or set of thesholds, above which it is safe to presume notability. If nobody at all is bothering to count appearances, that might say something about how notable that league really is. Regardless, if a player is the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources, he merits an article, statistics or not. —WFC— 07:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that earlier dig WFC, really appreciate it. GiantSnowman 10:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It was nonetheless factually accurate. —WFC— 12:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense. Either way, feel free to improve article, rather than just slate them. GiantSnowman 13:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If I were to reply to that directly, it would doubtless be vicious to the point of blockable. Suffice to say, a lot of those one-liners are comprehensive, and will forever remain so. Therein lies the issue. —WFC— 17:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Not at all, anyone with a Joyce book, Rothmans etc. (i.e. resources I don't have!) would be able to improve any articles I create. GiantSnowman 17:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But does the type of information available in Joyce, Rothmans etc constitute significant coverage, especially with regards to AfD arguments relating to "routine coverage" etc? Eldumpo (talk) 18:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Bettia, your suggestion has merit. Not 100% sure your numbers are where they need to be but the general concept is pretty good. Of course it should all have been discussed some months ago when WP:NSPORTS was being developed and made official guideline.--ClubOranje 10:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• As far as potential difficulties with sourcing go, Misplaced Pages policy is quite clear on the subject. There's an unusual school of thought out there that if sources are difficult to find for a subject, we need to give special consideration to that subject. This concept is not supported by Misplaced Pages policy. If you can't find sources for a subject, the only answer is that an article on that subject cannot be sustained, which is the solution to the Azerbaijani caps question.

  As far as the question of pre-professional leagues go, that's why I drafted the clause for WP:NHOCKEY that reads "Played one or more games in an amateur league considered, through lack of a professional league, the highest level of competition extant, such as the 19th century Amateur Hockey Association or the Soviet League," since we had the same situation as you do - "amateur" leagues in the Eastern Bloc which nonetheless had the best players their nation fielded. A similar clause would work well here.  Ravenswing  17:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Notability of footballers page

I think it would be useful if the WP:FPL page is renamed to relate to footballers notability in general. There should be some guidance at the start to indicate the football consensus as to what kinds of sources are regarded as notable i.e. it would discuss issues such as local coverage, stats databases, transfer articles etc. The page could also provide some links to pages/sources detailing other aspects of notability such as league attendances, UEFA and other regional league rankings etc. The FPL list could remain within the article, and until/unless there is a consensus to change this being the sole determinant of NFOOTBALL notability, the link from NSPORT would still go directly to the FPL list. Any thoughts? Eldumpo (talk) 09:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If we're still using "professional" as a barometer, then some sort of distinction between "professional" and "non-professional" will need to remain. Perhaps if we start off with an exact duplicate of WP:FPL, and then try to build on it? —WFC— 12:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, starting with a duplicate of the existing could be a good way forward. I guess the new page would be at someting like Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Football/Notability of footballers. Maybe it's something myself or someone else will have a go at starting. We need to set out consensus on types of coverage that confer player notability. Eldumpo (talk) 18:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe a list can be started on here stating which types of coverage are acceptable. It can be edited and discussed until consensus is reached. Examples based on Bettia's to start with would be "Played X league games in a top-level professional league", "Played X league games in a 2nd level top-level professional league", "Played X league games in a non-professional top-level league", "Played for a FIFA member national team" etc. Expect the X's in those to be the most contentious issue. Delusion23 (talk) 19:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

This will only work if the majority agree and given the lack of input from some of the bigger editors amongst us I'm not sure that's the case.20:00, 24 May 2011 (UTC)Warburton1368 (talk)

I can only think of a couple of people that I would consider "big hitters", that haven't posted at WT:FOOTY since Doktor Plumbi's original post. That some have decided to steer clear of this particular thread is their decision. More significantly, we're not about to unilaterally change the guideline. We're merely taking up Number 57's challenge to draft an alternative. That's something any one of us could have done unilaterally if we had preferred, but it won't take effect until it goes through proper scrutiny. And finally, drafting an alternative is the easy bit. The real challenge is to lambast those who later go "Arbitrary. Bad. Nuuuuuh", while still staying on the right side of our civility guidelines. —WFC— 04:30, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I copied WP:FPL over to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Football/Notability of footballers, and am in the very early stages of restructuring it along the lines of Bettia's proposal. I've made explicitly clear beside the arbitrary figure that it is merely a starting point. I'm mindful of not doing too much myself, because I appreciate that I may coming at this from quite a different perspective to others. Further input welcome. —WFC— 06:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a good start. If the proposal takes into account average attendances we could sort out the anomaly where Ireland (ave. 2,043) do not get coverage whereas Georgia (ave. 757), Macedonia (ave. 757), Azerbaijan (ave. 1,871) and Armenia (ave. 614) do because they're professional leagues. Delusion23 (talk) 10:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Yep, looks very good indeed, well done. Coming up with a suitable number of games for notability could be an issue, although a potentially moot one if players with one/two games meet the GNG... GiantSnowman 10:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Should it be the case that a player has to make more appearances in a lower professional league than in a top level one? Example, 5 at top-level professional league and 10 at 2nd level professional league. Anyone have any opinions on whether these example numbers should be higher or lower? I'm personally not yet convinced that non-professional players should get articles unless they pass GNG. Delusion23 (talk) 11:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added a few sections on alternative notability and sources for GNG. There's now a section on attendances which could do with expanding, subject to consensus. I think if thresholds are decided on we need to demonstrate (with reference to sources) why people above the threshold are deemed notable, and why those below it aren't. Eldumpo (talk) 11:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly - it's one thing agreeing on a suitable notability page on this Project, but trying to convince the wider community is another thing... GiantSnowman 11:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

What about appearances in European competitions? This guy, Marin Datković played 44 minutes for Rijeka in the third qualifying round of 2009–10 Europa League. Other than that, he spent all of his career in Croatian third league. Does an appearance in Europe make him notable? Dr. Vicodine (talk) 11:27, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a good point that the issue of Continental appearances ought to be dealt with at that page, and I've added a brief section. It ought to be included for completeness even if the consensus is that such appearances do not confer notability. Eldumpo (talk) 11:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Question to clarify; this is accepting the 1st bullet at Misplaced Pages:NSPORTS#Association_football regarding International involvement stands as is and we are re-discussing the inclusion criteria beyond that (ie, club based football involvement)? Ultimately I think it would be sensible to discuss it at Misplaced Pages:NSPORTS and get it included in the guideline, replacing the current bullet point 2 with the outcome of this - possibly with multiple points. Either way, splitting the discussion between here, the talk page of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Football/Notability of footballers and NSPORTS is not the right way. various conversation streams should be closed and redirected to a single focus point. If that happens to be the working page set up as above fine, but when a general broad outline has WP:FOOTBALL consensus it should then be taken to NSPORTS for community consensus--ClubOranje 11:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes this is about notability for non-internationals, and something on that ought to be added to the page. WFC has posted on this at NSPORT, but yes we do need their agreement. However, the football wording at NSPORT is more or less exactly what Athlete used to say, and I'm sure NSPORTS watchers will pay a lot of notice about specific criteria agreed by a particular sports wikiproject. Eldumpo (talk) 11:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I'm happy to discuss it internally (within WP:FOOTBALL) and come up with something fairly robust, then take it to NSPORTS with a good sales speech about how it is tightening up criteria a little to ensure better quality articles and thin out the number of obscure 2-minute-wonder player articles.--ClubOranje 11:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

As GiantSnowman and ClubOranje correctly point out, changes couldn't/wouldn't take effect until the final draft has been agreed at NSPORTS. I also agree that there should be a single point of focus, but think having the discussion either in this thread, or at the new supage's talk page, is more appropriate, along with a courtesy notification to NSPORTS so that they know what's going on. At the moment this is football editors saying "the current notability barometer is out of step with sitewide practise", and attempting to devise a workable alternative. When it gets to the stage where there is something approaching consensus among football editors, we can then bring a formal proposal to the wider community.

As for internationals, I don't see them as being anywhere near as big an issue as for club players. That's not to say that I think the current system is perfect. But if you have played international football, even for a minnow, there is a somewhat stronger presumption of notability than coming on as a sub in the paint pot for Aldershot. —WFC— 11:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with WFC that, as a rule of thumb, internationals have a stronger claim to notability than club players, and think the current guidelines for them are fine. I'm also increasngly coming round to the view that club notability does need a proper tightening. GiantSnowman 12:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added a brief section on international players. I think once we start to get into the heart of the various arguments we ought to discuss issues at the new articles page for completeness. We can always post links here asking for comment. Eldumpo (talk) 12:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Are we going to consider certain 2nd tier leagues to be as notable as the top level leagues? I don't know if this suggestion is getting too far ahead of what's being drafted, but as it is a player in the Championship or the 2. Bundesliga would be less notable than a player from the Armenian Premier League. Good work so far though - I still fear there a lot of stumbling blocks to overcome, but that's not to say improvements aren't possible. J Mo 101 (talk) 12:43, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I would guess that a player in the Championship or 2. Bundesliga would pass GNG anyway. This new notability page is just a guideline that points out at what level notability can be assumed. On another note, I've started a list of international tournaments in which appearances may denote notability on the page. Delusion23 (talk) 13:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added a brief note re lower levels being notable. Thanks for adding some further international club tournaments, although I don't think it a good idea to have a 'games played' threshold for these, partly as it is arbitrary and partly as a lot fewer games are played in these competitions than domestic leagues. Eldumpo (talk) 13:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

We need to introduce a little complexity to make this work. That said, we should aim to keep it as simple as possible. If that means equating the Championship to some Eastern European second division, so be it. The grey area provided by the GNG should in practise mean that considerably more Championship players will be able to show notability, and a reasonable equilibrium can be achieved that way. Crucially, if such articles are required to show that they meet the GNG, it should result in better articles on these borderline players from the start. —WFC— 13:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

@Eldumpo: I thought it may be a problem but as it stands we have the UEFA Champions League and Copa Libertadores at the same level as the OFC Champions League. So we either need a graded number of appearances (i.e. 1 appearance UEFA or Copa L, more appearances for OFC or CAF etc.) or the list of notable international club competitions will need to be narrowed. I've changed the list slightly by removing app. limits for the 2 highest ranked competitions. Another thing I've been wondering is should there be a distinction between appearing in the qualifying round of these competitions compared to appearing in the later stages? Delusion23 (talk) 13:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well clearly the Championship and 2nd level leagues in Eastern Europe are not on the same level of general notability, although that's only an issue if leagues that should be included are being excluded. If an article can meet the sport/football criteria it is assumed to meet GNG, although it is only reasonable that there is some justification that appropriate/significant sources may exist, and thus I feel we may need to show sample evidence for articles. Eldumpo (talk) 14:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Delusion: With half an eye on systemic bias, I'd say an appearance in the non-qualifying stages of any of the main continental ones should suffice, with a stricter rule for the OFC. The GNG and/or appearances in professional leagues should be sufficient for a lot of qualifying-only players in Europe and South America anyway. —WFC— 14:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

In my experience, it is difficult to get an article about a player who spent his entire career in many of these "professional" leagues (e.g., Armenian Premier League). I worry that writing NSPORTS in such a manner that assumes notability (e.g., passing of the GNG) for such articles is not a reasonable way to proceed. It is even difficult to write a GNG-compliant article about players who spend a career in better-covered leagues like the Greek Super League. If possible, we really ought to treat play in a league like the 2. Bundesliga or English Championship differently than play in the Armenian Premier League. Individual articles about people who spent a career in the Armenian Premier League can always establish notability through GNG compliance, but I'm not convinced it's a good idea to assume it (even after 5, 10 or 100 matches in such a league). Jogurney (talk) 14:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

You're right, whichever leagues are deemed notable we ought to be satisfied that players from those leagues could pass GNG, and to me that needs evidence that it is true for some players. Eldumpo (talk) 14:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a good point, and one worth taking on board. Although given the way in which NFOOTBALL is currently applied, I think it's fair to say that the same argument applies to the current system. —WFC— 14:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I've started a couple of threads at the talk page re stats sites/books and thresholds. I think other topics that need starting including "local-only coverage for GNG", "regional bias/how to deal with outside Europe" and "consideration of attendances/other means of notability". Eldumpo (talk) 14:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

All good topics of discussion. —WFC— 14:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Golden Generation

Having been looking at the Golden Generation page and it seems to be a complete mess - currently it just seems to list random teams that someone has decided are good and so listed without really any rhyme or reason. I was intending to tidy it up to take it back to what (in my opinion) it should be - a list of teams that have been referred to as a "golden generation". However as a) I'm fairly new and it would be my largest edit so far and b) it will involve removing a pretty large part of the article, I want to make sure that I'm not being a moron so thought I should get some advice. It's worth noting that all of the information I'd remove is covered elsewhere in (again, in my opinion) more appropriate areas. Thanks Robinr22 (talk) 14:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

IP stat vandal

Came across this user a few minutes ago. Have dealt with it, and it's probably not worth blocking, as I assume he has jumped IPs. The vandalism was quite hard to spot on the watchlist, because most of the changes are exactly 0 bytes of difference, so I just thought I'd give people a heads up to check any articles of this sort they have watched. There was a particular emphasis on Gillingham for some reason, possibly a previous blocked or banned user? —WFC— 10:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, can't think of anyone who's been blocked for anything related to the Gills -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

On second thoughts, can someone block him. He has vandalised since a final warning, showing both that he is unable/unwilling to change IPs, and is of a mind to continue to vandalise. —WFC— 05:23, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

French Cup Stats

Anyone know a good site for French Cup and French League Cup stats ? LFP used to be good but I don't think the stats are available anymore for some players since they released the new version of the site.TonyStarks (talk) 12:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much depends on how far you are going back. The LFP site only lists statistics for the Coupe de France beginning with the 2007–08 season, however it starts from the beginning with the Coupe de la Ligue. Footballdatabase is pretty reliable. The official club site can also be reliable. Would be helpful if you sent me a message listing some of the players you were hoping to find stats for. JS 18:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I was just trying to find the stats for Djamel Abdoun but I'll probably be needing stats for many other players. I'll check the site you listed or the official sites, should be sufficient for the players I'll be working on. Thanks again.TonyStarks (talk) 19:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Footballer turned politician

Greetings all,

A recently retired footballer in Ecuador has just been named to a cabinet position in the Ecuadorian government. Can anyone direct me to another article of a footballer turned politician so I can get an idea/example on how to handle the article, specifically for the infoboxes. Thanks. Digirami (talk) 02:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Pelé and George Weah are probably bad examples. Hack (talk) 02:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I think there might be a list in this. A couple of others are Don Rossiter, Mustafa Mansour and Garan Fabou Kouyate. Hack (talk) 02:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Not a footballer, but Manny Pacquiao isn't the worst example in the world. —WFC— 02:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Some more - Albert Guðmundsson, Oleg Blokhin, Carlos Bilardo, Jozsef Bozsik, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (allegedly), Toshiro Tomochika, Danny Jordaan, Randy Horton and Éric Di Meco. Hack (talk) 02:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

A couple more - William Clegg, Roberto Dinamite, Romario, Bebeto...Hack (talk) 03:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Cool thanks. I think I'll go with the Pacquiao example. Digirami (talk) 04:19, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

No list of footballers turned politicians would be complete without this former Coventry and Hereford stopper.--EchetusXe 07:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

That's hilarious. Did he ever stand for office? Hack (talk) 03:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

How about Lynn Swann? Erikeltic 03:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Boredom got the better of me -

People notable for both football and politics

The live version is at User:Hack/Footballing_politicians Hack (talk) 09:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

You can add Ahmed Ben Bella. Played a game for Olympique de Marseille and went on to become president of Algeria.TonyStarks (talk) 09:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

If we get some sources, is this worthy of an article maybe? GiantSnowman 10:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Definitely. Not sure about the name though... Hack (talk) 10:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Religion and politics, perhaps? —WFC— 12:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

It'd have to be Religion and politics, to prevent Americans confusing it with their sport... GiantSnowman 12:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, how about Gianni Rivera then? --Angelo (talk) 11:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

And Roman Kosecki 21:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Added. The page is now at Association football and politics. I am having a little difficulty referencing Garan Fabou Kouyate and Mustafa Mansour, so some African expertise wouldn't go astray... Hack (talk) 01:36, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Multiple infoboxes

Would anyone object using multiple instance of Template:Infobox football league season for Apertura/Clausura leagues where each tournament crowns a different champion? Digirami (talk) 08:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to have parameters that allowed for such scenarios? GiantSnowman 18:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think using separate infoboxes for each championship (and a simplified one for the season) night prevent it one single infobox from getting too big, such as in the 2011–12 Primera División de México season. Digirami (talk) 11:59, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Europe XI vs Africa XI

In 1997, a game was held between a European XI and an African XI in Lisbon, Portugal. The game was organized by UEFA and CAF in an effort to combat racism. Complete line-ups and scorers can be found at RSSSF's website (just scroll down a bit). There's also a good video on YouTube about the match with some commentary at the start : Africa vs Europe 1997. I wanted to create an article for the page but I wasn't sure what the title of the article should be. Anyone have any ideas ? TonyStarks (talk) 20:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Hm Europe XI v Africa XI (1997) or maybe Europe v Africa (1997)? According to what can be seen in Category:England national football team matches there is no consensus on whether to use "vs", "v" or "v." but it seems a plain "v" will do the trick. Btw looks like that match was part of the UEFA-CAF Meridian Cup, and that article lists teams as "UEFA" and "CAF", but the video summary you posted clearly called the teams "Europe" and "Africa". Timbouctou (talk) 20:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

See I wasn't sure if having just Europe vs Africa (or variations of it) would be enough to distinguish it as a football match. As for its relation to the Meridien Cup, I know it was not part of it but definitely related to it. The game was held during the same time the competition was held and we see the logo for the competition at the start of the video. However, Meridien Cup was is for youth teams so I know it's not part of it.TonyStarks (talk) 21:12, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes you're right. I think "Europe v Africa (1997)" is the best solution. That's the format usually used for football matches. I don't think that we ever had to disambiguate it further in the aticle title. I'm not even sure if here are any articles on single matches in other sports. Timbouctou (talk) 21:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I actually prefer your first suggestion of Europe XI v Africa XI (1997). I'll wait a bit before creating the article tonight, maybe others will have some input. If no one objects I'll go with the aforementioned "Europe XI v Africa XI (1997)".TonyStarks (talk) 22:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If you need any help from Portugal, just say. I scaresely remember the match... FkpCascais (talk) 04:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks .. I created the article (Europe XI v Africa XI (1997)). Feel free to check it out and either fix any mistakes or add any missing information. I couldn't figure out who the coaches were even though I'm sure Berti Vogts was one of them. I found an article yesterday where he talked about the match but I can't seem to find it anymore.TonyStarks (talk) 14:42, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I took a look at the clip you linked yesterday and I think it said Eusébio coached Africa. Timbouctou (talk) 14:48, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The video says that he was selected "to kick off the spectacle" .. not sure if it means he was coach as well. Also, from the video, it says that Berti Vogts and Rennes Mikel (sp??) coached the European side. Anyone know who the second person is? I'm sure I butchered the spelling of his name.TonyStarks (talk) 14:50, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Rinus Michels, presumably -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Found this article you could use: Football: Europe v Africa match makes history. It says that the coaches for Africa were Rabah Madjer and Mawade Wade. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 18:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Laws of the Game (association football) / rules template(s)

the very relevant article and his 17 articles refering to the 17 rules are currently not part of the templates Template:Association football terminology or Template:Association football chronology, and it should have his own template, maybe something like Template:Association football laws. "Rules" and specifics rules are part of Template:Basketball. The rules-laws are the definition inself of the game, we should fast show that football is not a alternative name of baseball--Feroang (talk) 03:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added the laws to {{Association football terminology}}. That was an oversight on my part. But I agree that the laws probably merit a separate template anyway. —WFC— 04:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Association football laws created but somebody should fix it to turn it nice, and need aprobation, guess. --Feroang (talk) 05:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Nice work! —WFC— 11:59, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Can I/we paste this template at the end of the central article Association football?--Feroang (talk) 17:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Appearances in testimonials

Quick question Scott Wootton's article has been amended in the careers statistics section to show an appearance for Manchester United last night under 'Other'. Should this be included or do we view this like pre-season friendlies and not include? Zanoni (talk) 09:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Without even looking what may be done elsewhere, that article clearly footnotes appearances that qualify to be in the "other" column with Includes other competitive competitions, including the FA Community Shield, UEFA Super Cup, Intercontinental Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, Football League Trophy. I don't believe that testimonial was a "competitive match" in the context of the footnote.--ClubOranje 10:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

What about testimonial matches as events? Are they notable enough for standalone articles? I ran into this 2002 article in a Bosnian weekly which talks about Zvonimir Boban's testimonial in Zagreb. It featured the likes of Maldini, Baresi, Rijkaard, Costacurta, Albertini, Desailly, Savićević, Massaro, Weah, Prosinečki, Šuker, Asanović, Šimić, Taffarel, Tudor, Bergomi, Rui Costa, Serginho, Matthaeus, Leonardo, Viduka, Papin, Redondo. Marco van Basten, Rivaldo and Shevchenko also appeared but didn't play and tennis player Goran Ivanišević came on as a substitute for Boban and even scored a goal against World Stars. Do you think this is worthy of an article? Timbouctou (talk) 10:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

No. end of the day it is a kick about between a bunch of mates (well, colleagues if you like) with fanzine value, tabloid filler space value and something for the guy to fill up a chapter in his autobiography, but it does not have encyclopaedic value and does not pass Misplaced Pages:Notability (events) --ClubOranje 11:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

OK. I don't disagree entirely with your view there but we do have things like England v Rest of the World (1963). Which looks like something with only relative fanzine value, tabloid filler space and something for the association to fill up a chapter in their autobiography. Timbouctou (talk) 12:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

A perfect example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; that England match was for the 100th anniversary of the FA and, while it does need a major overhaul, I'm sure sources can be found to establish notability. If not, I'd be more than happy to nominate it to be nominated for deletion. GiantSnowman 12:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with ClubOranje, that testamonial articles should be avoided like the plague. Although if those lineups were backed up by the sort of interest those lineups would garner nowadays, it does makes something of a case to be an exception. The notable absentee notwithstanding. —WFC— 12:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Flags

There is currently a RFC on the use of flags within lists, including lists within articles, at WT:MOSICON. This project is potentially affected by the RFC, and constructive comments from members of this WP is welcome. Also, {{football squad player}} is apparently the cause of some discontentment re the display of flags. I've made a suggestion on the talk page of the template re correcting this. Mjroots (talk) 12:30, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Bill Yates (footballer)

Hi. Just visiting from WP:CRIC! I'm making a list of notable Buckinghamshire cricketers, while doing so I came across Bill Yates (footballer) who played football for Bolton and Watford. His cricket career was at a Minor counties level, so on its own is non-notable. I have no idea where to look up information on footballers, so would anyone be able to create his article, then I can add his cricket info? Thanks. AssociateAffiliate (talk) 09:40, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Danger Fourpence

Hi. Just stumbled across this Zimbabwean footballer's article, that if you view the history, had turned into a spoof page for the last few weeks. I've reverted back to the original version, but if people could keep an eye on it, just to monitor for anymore vandalism? I'm not around enough to do it myself. Cheers Eastlygod (talk) 11:11, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, that was fairly shocking, particularly how long it had lasted. I've deleted the revisions (26 in total) as they were purely disruptive and blatant WP:BLP violations so as to deny those IP editors their fun. Woody (talk) 11:22, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Help Please

Im having an issue with the Disciplinary records table in article 2011–12 Heart of Midlothian F.C. season it wont display the table properly just the content. Not sure whats wrong with it hoping someone could have a look for me. 18:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)Warburton1368 (talk)

Okay, that's odd. When I previewed my change it was sorted, but when I saved it the table is still hidden.

Hm, in preview everything looks fine, but on save page it stays the same. Don't know what's wrong. Maybe something to do with that fb si footer. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 19:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Got the culprit; an extra closing table bracket below the discipilnary table was to blame, which didn't do well with the applied footer template. On two side notes: 1) The continuous edit conflicts were a little... tedious, so to say.^^ But I guess that happens when three people try to fix it at the same time, with nobody really having a clue... 2) The article could use some clean up already, mainly in the MoS and spelling departments... Cheers, Soccer-holic 19:17, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Good stuff. My excuse is that I don't use templates to create tables so I have no experience with this. No wonder the table looked fine when I previewed it because it wasn't including the faulty template table directly above it. We got there in the end at least. Argyle 4 Life 19:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help. Im aware it has a few issues its a work in progress. 19:27, 26 May 2011 (UTC)Warburton1368 (talk)

Likely needs cleanup

Category:Defunct football competitions in Turkey

I stumbled on one of the National League season articles in random page patrol. Their page names, and their lead sections, could probably use some clarification or standardization if there's an applicable MOS section. I have no experience with this, so I'm giving it to this WikiProject. Raymie (t • c) 19:30, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Fantasy Premier League table - final standings

If you are anything like me then you have forgotten all about this. Here is the table:

Congratulations Mr. Clarke!--EchetusXe 12:53, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Wooo, distinction by bein' dead last. ;-) Madcynic (talk) 13:13, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

8th place. I may retire. GiantSnowman 17:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, my tigers indeed were a little toothless during April... almost has some Vizekusen touch to it... xD --Soccer-holic 20:46, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

South Sudan national football team

I've created this page. There's little press information about their first game in the mainstream media; a match against Kenya has been organised for the 9th July at Juba Stadium. TheBigJagielka (talk) 14:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I thought it had been decided in several recent AfD discussions (and more) that these "national" representative teams are not notable, because they don't pass the GNG? BigDom 16:28, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Slightly different here because they are looking to join CECAFA, CAF and FIFA, they are also playing full FIFA members. TheBigJagielka (talk) 17:34, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Plus Southern Sudan is set to become an independent country in about 6 weeks, according to its article...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Non-FIFA football is a good article to read when you think in current south sudan, maybe copy some category.--Feroang (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Mexico U22 schedule

Should the Mexico's U22 upcoming friendly matches be added to the Mexico's national senior team's article? Even though it is an U22 team with five overage players, the caps still will count as a senior cap. GoPurple'nGold₂₄ 18:31, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

navigational boxes on article Association football

I guess we should copypaste, some of the templates at end of FIFA article in Association football, we should show that somebody play proffesional football, like in the articles basketball, baseball, or futsal, show that international football is a real thing, show that there is more that 1 country where leagues are on.--Feroang (talk) 18:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

my opinion of templates to add: {{International football}} {{International women's football}} {{International club football}} {{International women's club football}} , nothing about futsal or beachfootball --Feroang (talk) 19:05, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps {{International football}} and {{International women's football}} but not any more, there are already enough navboxes at the bottom of that article and frankly a lot them now need rationalising into one or two templates. There are far too many stand-alone navboxes that could be merged. Too many of them are unsightly at the bottom of articles. Woody (talk) 20:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

merged in the great and stiil not builded Template:Association football, have somebody the ability to do a good one with that name?--Feroang (talk) 23:05, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

merged Template:Association football terminology and Template:Association football laws in still stub-unofficial-inconstruction Template:Association football whole, ideas are welcome. Do not paste this new template until final name/wikidirection get elected--Feroang (talk) 23:33, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's an awful name for a template, and its content makes little to no sense. GiantSnowman 23:39, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

need some name and content about the sport inself, not caring about the diferents leagues and conpetitions--Feroang (talk) 23:46, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

should we add this putting on the Template:Association football chronology? how?--Feroang (talk) 00:00, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

v t e Association football sport "whole"
Laws of the Game Rules of Association football	Law 1: The Field of Play  · Law 2: The Ball  · Law 3: The Number of Players  · Law 4: The Players' Equipment  · Law 5: The Referee  · Law 6: The Assistant Referees  · Law 7: The Duration of the Match  · Law 8: The Start and Restart of Play  · Law 9: The Ball In and Out of Play  · Law 10: The Method of Scoring · Law 11: Offside  · Law 12: Fouls and Misconduct  · Law 13: Free kicks (direct and indirect)  · Law 14: The Penalty Kick  · Law 15: The Throw-In  · Law 16: The Goal Kick  · Law 17: Corner kick
International Football Association Board (IFAB)	The Football Association  · Scottish Football Association  · Football Association of Wales  · Irish Football Association  · FIFA
Terms	Formations  · Media  · Positions  · Tactics and skills  · Variants
Nicknames	Clubs (Americas · Mainland Europe · UK) · National teams · People
Governing body (most of the) world FIFA	Template:Navbox subgroup
Non-FIFA	NF-Board · IGA · MFA – Viva World Cup · Island Games

not in the table inself but here a version that add some data of organizations from Template:International football --Feroang (talk) 00:40, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

others expanded unofficial and inconstruction versions in Template talk:Association football whole--Feroang (talk) 00:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

What have nicknames and laws of the game lsot in there? The governing bodie section is much to big. -08:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Summer in club articles

Some leagues will play their last rounds in days to come, some had already finished the season, however one of the WP club articles periods that I most hate is about to begin: the period when million of IP´s add and remove players from club squads, when one doesn´t have any clue when searching info in some other club squad, because most probably since the end of the season a million IP´s had already mixed a million players in that squad... I mean, I HATE this period! Honestly, I would freeze the last season squad until the start of next one. I supose that neither I know what do I pretend with this thread, but all I know is that from now on numerous club articles will just live a total anarchy for a couple of months... Have we ever discussed this? FkpCascais (talk) 19:40, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume we must have discussed this at some point, though I couldn't tell you when. As ,much as I hate this period as well, I don't think there is all that much we can do about it. In the most severe cases articles will usually be semi-protected. See FC Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund for example. Beyond that, all we can really do is watch the club articles and revert when necessary. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:34, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to admit, I'm guilty of being a little overzealous this year. I updated a few pages the last couple of days based on some transfers that happened before being alerted by Sir Sputnik (whose post is just above mine .. thanks by the way :D). I completely forgot that transfers don't take place until July 1st! Anyways, with that said, I'll keep an eye out for any changes .. but truth be told, its a losing battle given the number of editors that will try to update squads after every single transfer.TonyStarks (talk) 01:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Na, don´t warry, it was not at all about you Tony that I opened this post. :) It has mostly to do with IP´s adding and removing players that were often only rumors about transfers, and then they forget to correct it (or just don´t care), making the situation of finding often club squads during summer in a total mess... I just touth of the idea of proposing to do something about it this summer, for instance, I touth about "freeezing" the squad from last season and add the in/out section where all transfers will be added. That way we will have the last season squad info, and we´ll satisfy the need of following the transfers on day-by-day basis without messing each time the squad template... Any touths, any sugestions, ideas (even if for future)? FkpCascais (talk) 02:09, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Many of these are not even rumours yet, they are just some fan's wet dream.--ClubOranje 09:05, 28 May 2011 (UTC) p.s. Filip: touth = thought ?

It´s just that fans wet dreams make us basically loose too much time each summer, if we are going to do a good work and keep correcting all the time.

p.s. : yeap... what was I t´inking? :) FkpCascais (talk) 21:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages articles being sold by book companies

I made a post on the above topic at Village Pump (Policy). My query basically related to references to strangely-titled books that I had come across when searching for online links to various footballers, and it turns out these are simply a random collection of Misplaced Pages articles cobbled together, not in any way edited/checked and then offered for sale at high prices. The basic answer to my question is that the Misplaced Pages license does not in any way prohibit the actions of these companies, although I do have some further questions relating to some of the issues arising at that post that I may subsequently raise. Anyway, I thought I'd flag the issue here for info, given the large number of footballer articles. I'm not sure how many of you were already aware of this. Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 20:29, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I noticed it a while ago when I was searching through Google Books looking for references for something unrelated to football. I don't see a problem with it really. Whoever has half a brain will see through the scam immediately. In fact I'm willing to bet that the majority of their customers (if they have any) are people whose only intention is to buy the book so they can sue the "publishing house" for fraud, claiming they were played. The bigger concern here is that there are editors out there who use Google Books to find references, quotes and "most commonly used names" for articles and are gullible enough to either treat this crap as a reliable published source or ignore the fact that their search result statistics are skewed by what essentially is a printed mirror site. I've seen it happen. Timbouctou (talk) 21:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Seb Larsson

Message moved to my talk page. Post was a reply to me and misplaced here. Struway2 (talk) 08:27, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Strongest national leagues template proposal

v t e List of current Strongest National Leagues by International Federation of Football History & Statistics
! Position) League : Points 1) La Liga : 1092.0  · 2) Premier League : 1039.0  · 3) Serie A : 1021.0  · 4) Série A : 982.0 · 5) Fußball-Bundesliga : 932.0  · 6) Ligue 1 : 884.0  · 7) Primera División : 861.0  · 8) Portuguese Liga 789.5  · 9) Eredivisie : 787.5 · 10) Ukrainian Premier League : 709.0

base on List of current Strongest National Leagues by IFFHS, and template base on every template in the "Category:Association football top scorer awards templates", need a look upgrade--Feroang (talk) 02:29, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is needed. Strongest national league is such a vague term. -Koppapa (talk) 05:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the template is needed, and as it's based on points, then presumably composition of Top 10 will change over time anyway. Eldumpo (talk) 10:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, not a template we need, especially as UEFA coefficients etc. are fine. GiantSnowman 12:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

UEFA coefficients do NOT tell which league is strongest, the argentinian or the chinese, the IFFHS yes do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Feroang (talk • contribs) 03:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not strongest, it is highest ranked based on a random system by on organisation. -Koppapa (talk) 07:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Why be exclusive? This template is fine. Argyle 4 Life 18:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

What Koppapa said! --Pretty Green (talk) 08:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Live scores issue again

As was previously discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 52#.22Live scores.22 or not.3F and other locations, we don't want to encourage the live updating of scores. This time at Talk:2011_UEFA_Champions_League_Final#Score_updates_removed. Is that simply a guideline or is it a policy? If the latter, let us codify it somewhere. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:23, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps add something to WP:RECENTISM about sports scores/results in general? GiantSnowman 21:27, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

The concern is that WP:RECENT is an essay and not a policy. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

True, but it's still better than nothing, and I doubt that we are going to get something like this turned into official, community-wide policy. GiantSnowman 21:33, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

How about an amendment to WP:NOT#NEWS? That would probably be a possible solution. --Soccer-holic 21:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Ooh, good suggestion! GiantSnowman 21:46, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

How do we propose an amendment? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I would presume that getting consensus at Misplaced Pages talk:What Misplaced Pages is not would suffice. GiantSnowman 23:40, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

On the talk page for WP:NOT presumably, but I would recommend clearing this other sports wikiprojects fist. Scores aren't unique to football after all. Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:02, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes; I would suggest proposing the changes, and then notifying other Projects about the discussion. GiantSnowman 00:17, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

A different perspective

Sorry to go against the grain here, but hear me out; New users are attracted to articles which are 'in the news' - even 'on telly'. If they come to Misplaced Pages at half-time, and see the score is up-to-date, they're impressed. They might just add something. If their edit is reverted or undone, they might be put off. I think/hope that all here want to encourage new editors.

What's the downside here - if something is up-to-the-moment? If it's verifiable, referenced, etc. - what's the problem? Just some 'I don't like it being current'?

Above, some cite WP:NOTNEWS - have you read it, what are you saying? While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized - but if it's the score of the European Cup, then that is irrelevant. I retort: WP:NOTPAPER. Why not be up-to-the-moment?

WP:RECENT is a user essay; not a policy; not even a guideline. And, it doesn't really apply;

• Articles overburdened with documenting controversy as it happens - a score is hardly 'over-burdened'
• Articles created on flimsy, transient merits. - not applicable, of course
• The muddling or diffusion of the timeless facets of a subject, previously recognized by Misplaced Pages consensus. - not applicable

Recently (haha), Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs) updated the article on Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge the very moment she said "I do" - and was widely congratulated for doing so.

Can anyone show me any policy/consensus that supports removal of verifiable, reliably sourced information simply because it is 'new'?

We were generally congratulated on our coverage of the Japanese Tsunami, and the Chilean mining disaster, because we were up-to-the-minute.

There is no policy or guideline in place that supports removal of adding encyclopaedic, verifiable, referenced data. Removing such additions is a gross breach of WP:AGF.  Chzz  ►  08:30, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I quite agree. The difficulty in justifying a ban on live score updates is also illustrated by the bizarre pattern of the discussion above, which firstly features a statement of the rule and then moves on in an effort to justify the rule's existence in whichever way is deemed best! Regardless, any reverts are likely to be part of a losing battle. † Omgosh30 † 12:06, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm also not convinced that live score updates are a real problem, as long as there is some text/template making it clear that the game is still in progress. Eldumpo (talk) 12:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

this last argument is easily dealt with in that once the ban is in place, the template is removed. Argue on the merits or lack thereof of the idea, not the existence of a template. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

My issue here isn't with match/tournament articles getting updated, it's player stats in infoboxes. I've seen IPs update apps the second a player comes on as a sub, and then when he scores a different IP will update goals AND apps, and then when the game ends a third IP will come and update again! GiantSnowman 16:14, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

@Walter Gorlitz - I'm not sure what you're getting at by saying "this last argument is easily dealt with" - I am saying that I don't see a problem with updating scores as long as the "in progress" status was made clear. Of course if a ban were in place (I can't see how it would be adhered to though) then there would in theory be no template to worry about, but that doesn't change my view on the need for it.

@ Giant Snowman - I thought all the discussions until now were regarding matches/tournaments. I agree it is "worse" for player infoboxes etc being updated in real time as there is no way to show that in a template (unless they update the pcu info as well, which is unlikely), but this is even harder to enforce for player stats due to the number of different articles that are affected. Eldumpo (talk) 16:24, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

As the instigator of the template in question, I would be happy for the template to be deleted if it became unnecessary, but in all honesty, I doubt that will ever happen: I'm sure the initiators of the templates for substandard articles, copyvios, unreferenced sections etc would feel the same. Not everyone who stumbles across an article while it is in progress will be aware of that status: the previous convention of putting the results in italics to indicate match in practice was wholly uninformative. I would suggest that avoiding in-match updates to player stats etc is a far higher priority, as that is the edit that will lead to later errors. I suspect that most in-match updates are more about some kind of pride in being the first to make the edit than informing readership, in which case it is mildly flawed, but essentially harmless. Kevin McE (talk) 18:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Your point is that because there are MIP templates it alleviates the problem of updating matches in progress. I'm saying, that if we state that there is never to be any updating of events until they've concluded, we would get rid of the that sort of templates. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

That is precisely not my point. Where in-match updates happen, it is useful for the reader to know that the score they look at is not a final result. Removing the template won't stop live updates, it will just mislead the reader who is unsure what time the game is due to finish. We state that there is never to be posting of POV unsustained by reliable sources, that there is to be no systemic bias, that there is to be no undue bias, etc etc, but these things still happen. The fact of templates about them do not prevent them happening. Kevin McE (talk) 08:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that there may be some misunderstanding here, amongst some members of the project group, regarding the appropriateness of adding current facts (up to the moment) on Misplaced Pages. Quite simply - there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Whether it is the score of a football game (seconds after the goal is allowed), or the fact that Osama bin Laden was shot, or that Kate Middleton became "Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge" when she said "I do".

I am absolutely certain I'm right on this issue - ie, that there is nothing wrong at all with adding verifiable information the moment it happens, as long as references support it.

In order to try and clarify this - to provide further assurance - I will seek input on this thread by mentioning it on the Village Pump.  Chzz  ►  22:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC) Now asked:  Chzz  ►  22:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

There is a great deal wrong it as Misplaced Pages is not a scoreboard. It's an encyclopedia. The former is updated as events are happening. The latter offers reasoned discussion of events after they've concluded. We already know that Misplaced Pages is not a newspaper. Treating it as a scoreboard is even worse. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a feeling you're being pretty Canuteish here. "Treating it as a scoreboard is even worse". Why? What's wrong with Misplaced Pages immediately reflecting sports scores if the matches are notable? I think it's a pretty pointless thing to do, but if someone happens to have Misplaced Pages up while they're watching a match, what actual harm does it do? And what are you going to do to enforce it, monitor the changes during the matches and revert them all? Fences&Windows 23:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz, there's no foundation to your argument. Why must an event end before its article can be edited? Should, by extension, season articles not be updated until the season is finished?  Omg †  osh  23:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh wow, Walter actually did sit there during a match and edit war to keep the score out! Jeez... if I think that adding the score is pointless, how much more pointless is removing it repeatedly? It's not like it's actually wrong. Walter, please find better things to do with your time than being a wikilawyer like this. Fences&Windows 23:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Stop looking at football and put in in perspective. There is no minimum time requirement for information to be included; it must only pass verifiability and notability tests. These matches are deemed notable events even before kick off. To argue that the score isn't notable is ludicrous. Once that information is verifiable there is no policy that prohibits inclusion. If you try to enforce a ban on all updates until an event is finished, even ignoring tournament and league event duration arguments, how will you legislate for test cricket, men's major golf championships, and 3 weeks of the Tour de France. The only difference between football and other events is the time scale.--ClubOranje 10:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Bloody good point. Snooker too. If anyone continues to do this - particularly if they misuse rollback, Walter - I think they could be classed as being disruptive. It's absurd to remove correct information under a misguided "purist" reading of WP:NOTNEWS. Fences&Windows 14:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Club badges

I removed the old club badge from Grays Athletic's article, and tried to upload the new one to Commons. I have no idea what license to use and it got speedily deleted. Would someone be able to help me out with updating it? --Jimbo 23:26, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm no expert at images, so why not copy the licence of an existing badge, such as File:Bradford City AFC.png? GiantSnowman 23:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

You shouldn't be uploading a Crest image to Commons unless it's public domain, upload it to Misplaced Pages with a licence like that above. Nanonic (talk) 23:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I tried copying the license from the old badge before. I just went through the upload wizard, it can all get a bit confusing! Anyway, I've got a small version uploaded, hopefully I can get my hands on a higher res image at some point soon. Thanks though! --Jimbo 23:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Can I just ask a quick question here that I have always wondered about. Some logos are on a white background (e.g. Hyde F.C. and Grays Athletic F.C.) but most have NO background (e.g. Manchester United F.C.), how if I want to could I remove the white background from a logo? thanks, LiamTaylor 08:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Youll have to edit it out yourself and then upload it. --Jimbo 10:19, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

How do I do that, im not an expert on images? :) LiamTaylor 10:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

In short: It's not possible with jpg or png images. You have to create an svg. ANd if you are no expert, don't start trying. That's somewhat difficult. -Koppapa (talk) 10:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Well that's definitely not true. Any GIF or PNG image can have a transparent background, not just SVGs. I could try removing the white background from some of the images, but I'm afraid I'm no expert so it wouldn't exactly look professional. – PeeJay 11:45, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Not being an expert sounds like a good reason to start trying rather than stop. In any case, it isn't difficult - grab a free program like Paint.NET, select the background with something like the magic wand tool, zoom in and make sure you don't have any of the non-background colour selected, hit delete, and you have transparency, repeat as necessary and save as png. Give it a go and let me know if you have any problems. Camw (talk) 12:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Womens premiers-toplevel domestic-nationaal leagues?

in ] are together a lot of men premier leagues, also the continental templates, like Template:AFC leagues, there you can easily travel around the world, but Template:AFC women's leagues is not paste there, same with others continental federation; I did search and I did not find a women version of that list, yes, there is a Women's association football around the world but is not the same. Is somewhere a women version of ]? or should we put every (top level) female league there too?--Feroang (talk) 03:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually the Template you linked,: Template:AFC women's leagues exists. Created by me, and i also expanded the UEFA version to near completion and started a CONMEBOL one. So there you should find your league your seach for. Most, if not all leagues were put in this category: Category:Women's association football leagues. There may be some non top-level leagues in there too, but that's should not concern, as there are not more than maybe 10 non-top level women's leagues that have an article. -Koppapa (talk) 06:42, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I did paste the women leagues templates in the category inself, fastering easily the navigation and understood the women leagues around the world, guess--Feroang (talk) 14:12, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Bob Newton

There is as issue here. Would anyone happen to have sources for this controversial issue?--EchetusXe 13:19, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Order of players in the NFT articles

Greetings all,

After a disagreement with an IP editor (i.e., edit war... spare me the lecture, please), I want to take the issue of how to sort players in the "current squad" and "recent call-ups" sections of national football team articles since there seems to be nothing codified, per say. In the "current squad" section, the preference has been to sort by position then by name in the absence of squad numbers; at which point the players should be order by numbers. A quick survey by User:Kevin McE saw that the ordering of players in the "recent call-ups" section is not universal, but share some similarities: position --> recent call-up --> caps. I want to know what people think about this order because it doesn't make sense to me. "Recent call-ups" is a list of players and should be ordered by the players' names early on, either position --> players' name (to keep it similar to the "current squad" section), or just the players' names. If it was really about the the recent call-ups, it would be order by recent call-up --> players. What do you all think? Digirami (talk) 17:42, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Divided into position (GK, DF, MF, ST), then arranged alphabetically by surname, I'd say. GiantSnowman 17:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. That is the way that I've always seen it. Argyle 4 Life 18:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't expect this to be a majority opinion, but I'd rather not list them by position, simply because the positions are not that fixed: is a player "in the hole" really more a striker than a midfielder? Is even the manager really clear whether his player is a wide midfielder or a winger? Was that a 5-3-2-1 formation or a 3-5-2-1, or even a 3-2-3-2-1? Some managers might be in the habit of announcing "My defenders are...., my midfielders are ...., my forwards are ....", but I doubt the practice is universal. Players often start a game as a midfielder and finish it as something else, or play successive matches in different positions (left midfield one day, left back another) And not listing by position would allow us to get rid of those ugly bars and subheadings that often appear.

As to the order, I'm really not that bothered: most recent call up lists are short enough that it will never be that difficult to see a particular name.

It requires a bit more work, but sortable tables allow us to have some flexibility. Kevin McE (talk) 19:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Websites such as the BBC, National-Football-Teams etc. sort by position. Just sayin'. GiantSnowman 19:16, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

For all national teams? And does a nominal midfielder always play in midfield? This can lead to the sort of situation where the declaration of what can usually be assumed to be a RS can be clearly be debunked by observation of what actually happens. Kevin McE (talk) 09:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I pretty much confine myself to only a couple of NT articles, and have never a big fan of the whole recent call-up thing, but accept them as a compromise over the "what is a current squad" argument, and it has the benefit of easily adding people back in with correct DOB etc,. When I do deal with them I tend towards by last chronological appearance (most recent first) simply because I normally qualify the section with "..called up in the previous 12 months.." or similar, and this makes it easier to notice and simply drop them off the end when the time comes.--ClubOranje 09:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Notability of future events

What is the general consensus regarding the notability of, say, 2013 UEFA Champions League Final? Currently there is no information about it whatsoever and there is no need to have an article about it at the moment. doomgaze (talk) 23:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Well it should be created where there is actual information to report. According to the article the location of the final will be revealed later this year. So somebody has jumped the gun, but there is no real point in deleting it when it would only be re-created in a few months.--EchetusXe 08:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The common procedure for such articles is to replace the content with a redirect to the respective main article until there is enough information available. Thus for 2013 UEFA Champions League Final the redirect would point to 2012–13 UEFA Champions League. --Soccer-holic 08:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

If you can say something about it that is not contained in the title and is not just speculation. For something like the CL Final, then, I think it becomes legitimate potentially when the date/location is announced. --Pretty Green (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

AfDed it Kevin McE (talk) 09:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys, thats a bit clearer. So as I understand it 2012 UEFA Champions League Final would be fine, as there is some information about it. What about 2014 FIFA Club World Cup and 2013 FIFA Club World Cup, where the only information about them is that the bidding process for them has begun? doomgaze (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's generally accepted that once a formal bidding process has begun, an article is just about justified. 2028 Summer Olympics survived an AfD though I think its probably pushing things a bit! Pretty Green (talk) 13:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

English Stadium Capacities Sources

Anyone know of a good source for the capacities of football stadia? Many official websites don't have figures. I'm trying to get List of football stadiums in England more fully sourced (see User talk:Pretty Green/sandbox2, which I plan to put 'live' when the winner of the Championship play-off final is known tonight). I've been using football365.com on the grounds that they have figures for all stadia in the top 5 divsions, and that their numbers seem to be fairly close to what we already have and is reported elsewhere. However, their figure for Rotherham United has obviously not been updated to the Don Valley Stadium, bringing into question their figures where there are other significant disputes. Is the Rotherham example a one-off? The alternative source might be footballgroundguidescom, but I've no idea who these people are and what their sources are? Anyone got any suggestions? Pretty Green (talk) 09:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

worldstadiums.com is a good source to use. I'm not aware of any issues regarding reliability. —BETTIA—  10:01, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Obvious suggestion is the relevant governing bodies:

Premier League handbook

Football League website club guides (not grounds link, which doesn't work properly)

Blue Square Premier website ground profiles

cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Cheers Struway2, those links look particularly useful! --Pretty Green (talk) 11:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Especially the Premier League handbook seems to be a decent source for the one or other item in 2010–11 Premier League (e.g. kits). I wonder if the Bundesliga or La Liga or similar league will come up with such sources as well in the future, it would definitely be appreciated! --Soccer-holic 11:27, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I once went on a similar referencing drive on List of stadiums in England; some of the sources from that may be useful. I tended to use official club websites where possible. Football365 is riddled with inaccuracies. In several cases the entry in the column for the highest crowd of the season is greater than the stated capacity. The Premier League handbook, while seemingly authoritative, also has this issue. Its figure for the City of Manchester Stadium is flat out wrong, appearing in no other sources and again being lower than at least one crowd from this season. Oldelpaso (talk) 11:59, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Vale Park always has more empty seats than spectators, also there is a stand that is half way finished. Thus sources differ between guesses between 19,000 and 23,000 capacity. I suspect many other grounds will also be a limbo state where only a visit from Manchester United in the FA Cup would incentivise anyone to try and count the seats.--EchetusXe 12:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Interesting, in that I believed the PL handbook data came from forms filled in by the clubs themselves. If not from the clubs, where do they get it? Or alternatively, where do clubs make up their attendance figures from... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Could the Man City distinction be because the PL handbook refers to capacity at the start of the season? In part the complexity (particularly for smaller grounds) will come from the distinction between number of seats and the legal health and safety limits put on a ground. The latter can be influenced by features such as a access roads, toilet facilities, etc, meaning that the capacity of a stadium can be lower than the space that there is for people within it! --Pretty Green (talk) 12:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

No, the ground is unchanged. Its also not a safety certificate or segregation thing, as the highest attendance was at the derby. My favourite example of a smaller ground purposefully claiming a smaller capacity is Torquay United, where for many years they claimed a capacity of 4,999. By coincidence, the cost of policing goes up significantly for events with a capacity of over 5,000. Oldelpaso (talk) 13:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

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