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Rules on club name changes

An anonymous user edited the list of league winners in the Prva HNL article so that it displays Croatia Zagreb instead of Dinamo Zagreb for their string of five straight wins between 1996 and 2000. Now, the club was founded as Dinamo in 1945 and had spend the next 45 years carrying that name, before changing briefly to "HAŠK Građanski" in 1992 and then "Croatia" from 1993 to 2000, when they reverted back to Dinamo. Now, what name should we use in historic tables, former players' infoboxes and such? Also, what do we do with clubs with sponsored names? I'm sure this has been discussed already but I can't find it in the archive. Thanks. Timbouctou (talk) 22:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, historic tables should always use the club's name as it was at the time. If the club was known as Croatia Zagreb between 1993 and 2000, then any reference to the club during that period should refer to Croatia Zagreb and not Dinamo Zagreb. I notice you mention clubs with sponsored names; is "HAŠK Građanski" a sponsored name? – PeeJay 23:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

No, "HAŠK Građanski" was a name created for Dinamo in an effort to distance the club from the 45 years in communism so they coined the name by joining the names of two former Zagreb clubs (HAŠK and Građanski Zagreb) which were dissolved in 1945 and who were then replaced by Dinamo. The government had claimed that Dinamo was a communist-backed forcible merger of these two back in 1945 (and in fact a lot of people still see Dinamo as a successor to Građanski and they attribute their trophies to Dinamo even though this has no legal ground in my opinion). It's quite a dilemma what to put in historic tables as everyone in the former Yugoslavia never stopped calling the club Dinamo, including all the supporters and folks at Zagreb who fought a lot to bring back the old name, which was forcibly changed twice in the 1990s by an authoritarian regime. In other words, it's very much a political issue in Croatia and Zagreb as "Croatia" and "HAŠK Građanski" were never really embraced by the general public. On the other hand, in this period the club had achieved their greatest successes, playing in the group stage of the Champions League twice, so historic references to this period compiled by people from outside Croatia always list it as Croatia, including UEFA's match reports from that time, and due to this people abroad may be more familiar with the "Croatia" name. Neither of these names were sponsored (unless we count dictatorial regimes as sponsors ha-ha), but I was wondering what do we do with clubs such as NK Istra 1961 (which changed their name a few times in the 2000s and reached the Croatian Cup final as "Uljanik Pula" (Uljanik being a local shipyard), or NK Slaven Belupo, which was just Slaven until the late 1990s when the local pharmaceutical company Belupo started sponsoring them, and helped bring them from lower leagues o a stable top-flight side known universally in Croatia as "Slaven Belupo" even though UEFA still lists them as just Slaven. There's also the issue of NK Inter Zaprešić which was known as "Inker" throughout most of their history (Inker being a ceramics factory) but changed it to "Inter" a few years ago when the factory dropped its sponsorship. On the other hand, there are examples of clubs who have been known by their sponsor's names through their entire history (such as NK Varteks, sponsored by the Varteks clothing factory) since the 1950's. Also, many Slovenian clubs have sponsored names, which are often subject to change, but the historical table at the Slovenian PrvaLiga article doesn't list them. Sorry for writing this much :-) Timbouctou (talk) 23:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of HAŠK, what are we supposed to do with NK HAŠK? The HAŠK in the first article is a Zagreb club which was dissolved in 1945. In the early 1990s the club was revived, although without actually competing anywhere, until they launched a third-level side carrying the same name, which later merged with NK Naftaš, forming NK Naftaš HAŠK, which was then renamed just HAŠK and currently competed in the third league. The club's official viewpoint is that it's all the same club, from 1903 to this day, but since the club was non-existent for 45 years this seems like nonsense to me. Should we merge the two articles or make some sort of greater distinction between the two? Timbouctou (talk) 23:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, I have a question regarding defunct clubs. How do we define it exactly? NK Kamen Ingrad and HNK Trogir are two clubs which are considered dissolved for all practical purposes, but even though they disbanded their senior teams because of financial difficulties, they still field junior and youth teams and compete at lower age levels. Does this mean they should be listed as defunct or not? Thanks. Timbouctou (talk) 23:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

In regards to your last question, I'd say that the clubs should not be categorized as defunct. If they are still active at some level then, by definition, the club isn't defunct – it just competes exclusively at lower levels. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a request for more eyes..

Hey folks, USA Striker Charlie Davies was involved in a one car accident today that was pretty horrific (a woman in Davies's car was killed). Can we get more eyes on this article for the next 48-72 hours? There's going to be a lot of speculation about who the driver in the vehicle was (not known yet), if alcohol or excessive speed was an issue (from seeing the photo of the car post accident, I'm pretty sure one or the other is, but trying to avoid WP:OR.. but we're going to need many many eyes on this as rumor, innuendo, and real news make their way out. SirFozzie (talk) 20:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

As an admin can't you simply semi-protect it for a week or two to stop IPs adding any old thing they want, until it all dies down and the real story emerges? GiantSnowman 20:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Wish I could. We're not allowed to semi-protect preemptively. SirFozzie (talk) 20:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Out of interest, is that documented anywhere? WP:PREEMPT only discusses pre-emptive full protection; I'd thought that semiprotecting BLPs was generally considered to be okay in cases like this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:11, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:SEMI (on the same protection policy page) says "Semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred". Camw (talk) 00:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Good Article nom - hlelp please

Hey folks,

Kris Boyd is more than ready for GA status I reckon, so I've nominated it. Any chance someone could format the nom for the main WP:FOOTY noticeboard? The instructions in that table aren't crystal-clear. (Or even better, do the GAN itself!) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Certainly better than start class. No problem.Cptnono (talk) 08:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Football (soccer) players by ethnic or national origin

I've just stumbled upon this category and its sub-categories. In general, it appears that many of these are applied without sourcing (in particular, the Jewish and White South African categories). I'm also dubious of the value of these categories unless the footballers are notable for their ethnic background (and the background is well-sourced). What do other project members think about these? I don't want to start a CfD unless their is some concensus that these are superfluous. Jogurney (talk) 03:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps they'd be better as lists, so they can be properly referenced...? GiantSnowman 03:04, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a good suggestion. Anyone else agree? Jogurney (talk) 15:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I will create a List of Jewish footballers, as I think that is perhaps the list that will be a) most populated and b) easiest to reference. GiantSnowman 15:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Fyi, Isaac Scliar, Aaron Wergifker, León Strembel, Ezra Sued and Jaime José Rotman can all be sourced as Jewish through the same book (it's included on each articles page already). I'll be glad to help once you get it started. Jogurney (talk) 15:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm just going through the 'Jews in Sports' website at the minute to get a half-decent list, will let you know when I've finished so you can add to it. Cheers, GiantSnowman 16:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Juan Sorin and Jose Pekerman are both Jews. [1] Spiderone 16:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, I've created a basic list but am getting bored, so if anyone one else wants to take over adding players for a bit, then be my guest! GiantSnowman 16:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Should the list include more information (presumably in a table format) about the years and league(s) these players competed in? Jogurney (talk) 17:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that discussion would be better for the talk page of the article in question, n'est pas? GiantSnowman 18:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll take it there. Jogurney (talk) 18:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Brett Holman

There has been a fair bit of vandalism on Brett Holman's page in the last few days. It would be good if an eye could be kept out for more of this behaviour over the next few hours (Australia play in the next hour).Hack (talk) 08:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected for a month (again) as the vandalism didn't die down after the last one expired. Camw (talk) 05:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Jonathan dos Santos

Should this article be deleted, even though he made an international appearance he still hasn't made his senior team debut. Since the other article was deleted another user created it with his last name starting with a lowercase d. Black'nRed 04:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the earlier discussion it was a B-international so it shouldn't be here...Hack (talk) 05:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

That discussion was actually poorly argued - Whilst the source provided says it is a "B-List" international, it was not a B-international at all, it was an official FIFA sanctioned friendly, as A-international as Netherlands/Australia, England/Slovenia and Germany/South Africa. The fact that both managers chose to play a number of second string players is neither here nor there, same as the Confed cup tournament Brazil sent their Olympic team to. BTW it is listed here. Therefore we should retain the Dos Santos page. --ClubOranje^T 05:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If players were awarded full A-international caps for the match, then the article should definitely be kept, but if it was just a B-international then deletion is the only option. – PeeJay 07:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Just because Mexico didn't play their A-list players, doesn't mean the game was not a full international. That seems to be the case here. There is nothing in the article that says this was not a full international match. FEMEXFUT's article on the match says it was his debut, along with the debuts of Néstor Calderón, Edgar Pacheco, and Javier Hernández. I say keep it. Digirami (talk) 08:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• This aticle should definitely be kept. I am fed of hair spilting deletionists argueing over petty points. His team plays in the Spanish league which well within the boundaries of notabiity. Djln--Djln (talk) 12:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I think it was more of a simple misinterpretation of text saying it was a B team fixture rather than "hair spilting deletionists" wanting rid of it. --Jimbo^[online] 21:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

This article is a keeper, he already made his debut for Mexico and I just added a reference link which talks about his debut with Barcelona Atlètic, in fact he already played in 3 matches for that team, the matches were against Mallorca B (debut), Benidorm CF and Sant Andreu.--Bocafan76 (talk) 20:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• Should the article be located at Jonathan Dos Santos like his brother's article? --Jimbo^[online] 21:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Perhaps it's Gio that should be moved for consistency as the his father (Gerardo) and other brother's (Éder) names are both lower case? --Jimbo^[online] 21:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. I was under the impression that "dos" is all lower-cased. Digirami (talk) 23:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I was also under the belief that it was 'dos Santos' as opposed to 'Dos Santos'. GiantSnowman 23:06, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Just been discussing that very point not 5 minutes ago at Talk:Giovani_Dos_Santos#Dos_capitalized.. I agree it should be dos, consistent with his brother but not that brother. Giovani should be moved back.--ClubOranje^T 00:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Giovani dos Santos' article has now been moved. --Jimbo^[online] 12:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Can an admin please unsalt Jonathan Dos Santos so we can turn it into a redirect...GiantSnowman 12:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Done both -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Cheers Chris. GiantSnowman 13:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The Central League

I just noticed that the above English reserves league was moved to The Tote.com Reserves League on 14 September by User:Pabmeista. Is it not the case that articles should not have the sponsors name in them?--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Correct. The article should remain at the official name as sponsors can regularly change. Eddie6705 (talk) 16:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought so. However, I've no idea how to go about moving it back. Could someone who knows, do it please, or at least explain how it is done as I don't want to mess it up.--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 17:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the article back to The Central League. Cheers, GiantSnowman 17:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help.--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 19:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem! :) GiantSnowman 11:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

NF-Board Teams

Would it be possible to have some degree of consensus concerning articles about NF-Board teams? What is the rationale for an NF-Board team being included on here? Obviosuly there are sides that play regularly, such as Northern Cyprus or Greenland, but what about those that have not played often, or recently (or even at all)? I ask because an article I did on the team representing the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was deleted, but when I put the South Moluccas article up for deletion, using the same rationale, this was classed as 'no consensus', in spite of most of the same contributors giving mostly the same reasons to delete it as for the Chechen article. There should be some consistency in this, otherwise it may seem that people have other agendas for deleting certain articles but not others. Hammersfan, 14/10/09, 14.24 BST

I agree. I think if the team hasn't played in donkeys' years like Western Sahara national football team then they should be deleted unless they pass WP:GNG. Spiderone 16:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It also appears that the Gozo national football team article was deleted earlier this year, but someone decided to bring it back. Here's the deletion log, which notes that the article was deleted 25 May 2009. And here's the article's history, which notes that this page was "created" on 27 June 2009. Re-deletion? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I have tagged Gozo for speedy deletion, if it's rejected then I'd suggest taking it back to AfD. Cheers, GiantSnowman 14:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I recall (NF Board's website is now member only, and I have no intention of registering), NF Board has a sort of associate membership that it seems to extend to people who think it might be nice if their ethnic grouping could perhaps one day do something vaguely related to the assemblage of a team one day, but without necessarily having any means or resources with which to bring this plan to fruition. Thus registration with NF Board does not seem to prove notability (or even meaningful existence), but teams in the VIVA cup, or those that are reliably reported to have played against other representative teams (not just a bunch of pals who share an ethnicity, but a team comprised of members of a number of clubs), would seem to have a genuine claim to a place. Kevin McE (talk) 18:29, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

DFB-Pokal moved

User:Bermicourt has seen fit to move DFB-Pokal to German Football Association Cup against consensus on the talk page. I am unsure how to proceed. I have left a message on their talk page so far and undid the move. Any advice? Madcynic (talk) 19:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, seems to have been an honest mistake. Madcynic (talk) 19:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The English Bundesliga website refers to the competition as the DFB Cup if it makes any difference...Hack (talk) 02:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really. I quote from the talk page.

• ESPN using Pokal,
• SkySports using Pokal,
• Soccerway using Pokal,
• Guardian newspaper using Pokal,
• The Times using Pokal,
• BBC using Pokal,
• the most comprehensive English-language history of German football using Pokal... Madcynic (talk) 09:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

School of Slavonic and East European Studies A.F.C.

Not notable, surely........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be notable. I can't find any evidence that they've ever played in the FA Cup. – PeeJay 10:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Definately not notable, they are a university based team who primarily play in the league created by that university's student union. It doesn't look like they have every played a recognised competitive match. AirRaidPatrol 84 (talk) 14:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If they want to be notable they should join the NCAA, although travel expenses might go through the roof... Maybe they could offset those costs by going pro and joining a Latin American FA. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying players

I have been working with User:Markh991 on European championship qualification articles, starting with UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying. I would appreciate some help on creating stub articles for any redlinked goalscorers (who are notable for scoring for their country) and any missing players on the squadlists which have been added for Group 1, Group 2 and UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying Group 3. It would be a real help, especially as most of the players are notable. Please post on links to player articles that you create. Cheers. 03md 17:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

PFC or PSFC

The bulgarian club PFC Chernomorets Burgas right long name in bulgarian is ПСФК Черноморец Бургас and ПСФК is Професионален спортен футболен клуб who mean Professional Sport Football Club like PSFC. --Николов (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The club badge says the club is called PSFC Chernomoretz. GiantSnowman 21:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

AS Béziers

Right, there's already an article about the defunct football club AS Béziers (football). However, there is a new completely unrelated team with the same name. The (football) part is needed to distinguish them from the rugby team, so I was wondering what to call the new article. AS Béziers (2007 football club)? AS Béziers (2007)? AS Béziers (football, 2007)? Any help appreciated -- BigDom 21:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think AS Béziers (2007) is the best idea. – PeeJay 21:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that was the one I would have gone with. Just thought I might as well see what others thought as well. Thanks a lot, -- BigDom 21:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Correct procedure based on existing articles would be to move the exisiting article about the defunct club to AS Béziers (1911), and create the new article at AS Béziers (football) - as per English examples such as Accrington Stanley F.C. (1891), Rochdale A.F.C. (1896), Maidstone United F.C. (1897) etc. GiantSnowman 21:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit different though because AS Béziers (football) was actually part of the same club as the rugby team, but the new team is a completely different club. -- BigDom 22:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There is also no direct link between the two Accrington Stanleys, or the two Rochdales, or between Crystal Palace F.C. (founded 1861) and the new club of that name...GiantSnowman 22:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

BigDom, don't put a defunct AS Béziers logo in the article about the current club...Looks strange to me.--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Abou Diaby

I looked at Diaby's page and saw his international statistics. I'm not sure it's appropriate to have that on the page because I've never seen that on any other pages. – Michael (talk) 22:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Whyever not? his international appearances are as much part of his career as those for his club. The featured article Thierry Henry has a table of international career stats. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Reassessment of Manchester United F.C.

Manchester United F.C. has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 14:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Admin request for page protection

Can an admin semi-protect Martin Allen. There has been a high level of misinformation vandalism. I made a request at WP:RPP, but have not had a response. Thanks, --Jimbo^[online] 18:28, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Angelo (talk) 18:37, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Unsalt Charlie Austin

Could an admin please unsalt and recreate the Charlie Austin article as per this appearance. Cheers, --Jimbo^[online] 21:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. Camw (talk) 00:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

FAO admins, re Darlington F.C.-related articles

Is there anything can be done about the serial IP-hopper obsessed with imposing their own style guidelines - always using sponsored names for leagues and cups, removing full names and any parameters they don't happen to like from infoboxes, whether sourced or not (e.g. [2]), moving cite templates from after punctuation to before, etc - on Darlington F.C.-related articles? They've been doing it for months, have been explained to and warned for months, see User talk:79.75.148.39, User talk:79.67.133.36, User talk:79.75.222.239, User talk:79.75.190.7, User talk:79.67.253.155, and are perfectly well aware of the MoS guidelines, as demonstrated by today's addition of endashes to Noel Whelan after their first warning :-) Or should we just not bother with the warnings and just waste an hour or so every time Darlo play restoring related articles to something approaching agreed standards? Or should we just not bother, let them get on with it, and hope they get bored? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Corey Barnes, an article on my watchlist, has just been targeted again for literally the 50th time. GiantSnowman 22:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Dmytro Voloshyn

There are two Ukrainian players named Dmytro Voloshyn that were both born in 1986 (1st in February, 2nd in April) and they are both defenders. One plays for Ukrainian club Kremin and another for Finnish club IFK Mariehamn. Since we need 2 articles how should they be named since we can't use the birth year and position in their names? Would the use of their full names be appropriate? Dmytro Vitaliovych Voloshyn and Dmytro Oleksandrovych Voloshyn? Ceriy (talk) 12:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• Using middle names is the best solution. Might be an idea to convert Dmytro Voloshyn into a disambiguation page. Djln--Djln (talk) 14:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• • Agreed. Use the patronymic name to distinguish one player from the other. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Dare I reopen the issue of full professionalism in the Finnish league? We don't need an article (and indeed, there is not yet one) for the Mariehamn Voloshyn. Kevin McE (talk) 09:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is no article on Dmytro Oleksandrovych Voloshyn yet. GiantSnowman 22:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I will be creating the article for Dmytro Oleksandrovych Voloshyn during this week. He has played at professional level in Ukraine for more than one year.Ceriy (talk) 00:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Bilal Biat

Is there any way of preventing a recreation of this article as it seems to be the same thing made over and over again and then getting a speedy deletion? Spiderone 08:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You can request the page be salted at this page Camw (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

English league top scorer template

There's no template for the English top-league's seasonal top scorer, and I am going to do something about that. However, should we have two seperate templates - one for the Football League First Division (1888-1992) and one for the Premier League (1992-present) - or should I merge them into one super-template? GiantSnowman 00:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's better to have one template for the top division no matter what it's called, it will just be more useful imo. A possiblity would be following precedent like Template:FR_Yugoslavia/Serbian_Superliga_top_scorers (and if there any other) chandler 01:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

OK cheers, what about the name then - template:English First Division top scorers? GiantSnowman 01:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Stats in Player Infoboxes

Should the infoboxes contain all senior competitive appearances/goals and not just League ones, as this means that Champions League, FA Cup Finals etc are not getting included in the stats. What are people's views? Has this been discussed before? Eldumpo (talk) 20:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Consensus is 1000000000% that it's league stats ONLY in the infobox. GiantSnowman 20:29, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

And 1000000000 is also about the number of times it's been discussed before, always with the same result. For info, the reasoning behind it is basically that finding league stats for players from all eras is pretty easy, but finding cup data from anything more than 10 years ago is nigh-on impossible (try finding Football League Trophy appearances and goals data from 1987.....), so the only way to ensure a level playing field is to just use league stats for everyone -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding some info on the reasoning. Can anyone provide some links to these past discussions? Also, what's the view regarding league play-offs. Do they count or not. If they don't I can see this being quite 'harsh' for leagues like Mexico where the play-offs are a big part of the season. Eldumpo (talk) 10:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is one previous discussion for starters...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course if you are writing an article on a player and you do have stats for every competition, you could always add a table within the body of the article, like in Steve Bruce (if you don't have a season-by-season breakdown, you could always just do one with columns for each competition and one line for "career totals"..............) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Reliable source?

I was looking for something to write in Watford's history section of the article, because there was a 38 period where we literally made Rochdale's history look exciting. Anyway, it turns out that we finished second bottom twice, and had to apply for re-election. Could've been worse, we could have finished bottom of the football league and struggled in the fifth tier...

Wholly justified tribal digs aside, I was just wondering what people's thoughts were on the reliability of this site? It seems pretty comprehensive to me, and for different reasons I found it every bit as useful as the football club history database. WFCforLife (talk) 06:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Is the 'football club history website' used as a reliable ref? It looks rather amateurish if you ask me. Watford's own website must have a history section on it, surely, and if not there is usualy someone employed by football clubs to handle history (a historian) e.g books, facts and the like. So you could maybe try sending them a Q to see if they could provide you with something helpfull.(Monkeymanman (talk) 19:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC))

Our current divide between Yugoslavia and Serbia not the same as FIFAs(?)

What is the rational for having the split at a different place in time than FIFA? We have the last international and coverage of Yugoslavia national football team in 1992, while FIFA don't make a change until 2002 (sept 2002 they play as Yugoslavia, oct 2002 they play as Serbia Montenegro when they play their first qualifier for Euro 2004), if we are gonna have split articles wouldn't it be easier to have the whole era when the team was known as Yugoslavia in one? chandler 04:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the old "big" SFR Yugoslavia, that existed until 1992, is different that the "last" FR Yugoslavia that was composed only of Serbia and Montenegro. There is almost no difference between FR Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia. When it pased from Serbia and Montenegro to Serbia (10 million inhabitants), the only difference was that Montenegro (0.5 million inhabitants) went out. But there is a much larger difference between SFR Yugoslavia (24 million inhabitants) and FR Yugoslavia(10 million inhabitants). In this "move" in 1992 Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia (country) went all out ( a bit more than half). Between FR Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro there is no difference, only name changed. You should see the Yugoslav First League article where in the last part it is explained the succesor leagues (and obviously national teams) that were created at that time, 1992. If FIFA has the split in 2002, they are wrong, because then, in that year, nothing changed except the word Yugoslavia became Serbia and Montenegro. FkpCascais (talk) 05:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The case is that Serbia (together with the "small" Montenegro) kept the name Yugoslavia for a decade more. It´s like Russia continued to be called USSR until 2002, a decade more since it break away. But, it would be really Russia, right? FkpCascais (talk) 05:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Russia hasn't been called USSR until 2002. --necronudist (talk) 09:13, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Everybody knows that. That´s wy I used it. I said "like". It´s an suposing exemple, daaahhh.... FkpCascais (talk) 19:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

That´s wy many articles are divided at 1992. I also did the Template:FR_Yugoslavia/Serbian_Superliga_top_scorers that way, couse since 1992 it was maynly only Serbian clubs that competed in the ligue. FkpCascais (talk) 20:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Vince Estavilio/Vicente Estavillo/Vicente Estavilio

I'm trying to work out whether the subject of the Vicente Estavillo article is same person being referenced here and here as Vince Estavilio; and here as Vicente Estavilio. The WP page has Vicente Estavillo being born in 1956 whereas the other refs have Vince Estavilio being born in 1955. While in all likelihood it's the same guy, which of these sources would you trust?Hack (talk) 09:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd say it was the same guy, they probably saw something along the lines of "Estavilio was 50 in 2006" - some took that to mean born in 1955, others born in 1956. GiantSnowman 20:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate pages

Mt Druitt Town Rangers and Mount Druitt Town Rangers seem to be duplicate pages for the same team, both recently created (by the same contributor). Can someone tell me how to get the latter deleted? Steve-Ho (talk) 11:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirected --ClubOranje^T 11:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Player Infobox - date of death

Is there any way to add the date of death to a player's info box, or is there another info box that can be used when the player is deceased? Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 20:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I use the dateofdeath, cityofdeath and countryofdeath parameter (see for example Fritz Walter). --Jaellee (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for response. How come those 'death' entries don't appear at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players. Is that not the master template location? Is that something you have come up with yourself? Eldumpo (talk) 21:08, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I just saw them used somewhere. According to Template:Infobox football biography and Template:Infobox football biography 2 they are "official" parameters. I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players is just an example on how to use these templates and not the master itself. But I'm not sure, for this you would have to ask the template experts. --Jaellee (talk) 21:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The Template:Infobox football biography 2 page is really useful and what I was looking for. I still think that somewhere in Wiki Football there should be a clear reference to these alternate templates e.g. if you click on the 'Player articles' link on the main Wiki Football template (top right of page) then there is no mention of these alternatives. It may be useful if someone who's more up on these templates considers adding an explanation? Eldumpo (talk) 22:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I have added the optional death paramaters to Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players, and have left them blank so they don't display, but are there for people to use as a template. Hope this helps. GiantSnowman 00:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Cleanup listing

Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Cleanup listing has just been updated. A great source for editors that have run out of things to do... Rettetast (talk) 21:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Club infobox

Any feedback regarding the MLS specific information in infoboxes would be appreciated. A discussion was started here. Cptnono (talk) 01:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Arsenal F.C. FAR

I have nominated Arsenal F.C. for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Giants2008 (17–14) 02:46, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Fußball-Bundesliga seasons

Hi, is there a reason why there is a 2009–10 Fußball-Bundesliga article but Fußball-Bundesliga 2008–09, Fußball-Bundesliga 2007–08, Fußball-Bundesliga 2006–07 … articles? Shouldn't the naming be consistent? --Jaellee (talk) 08:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The articles will all be moved in due course. The top priority at the moment, however, is to get all of the articles in Category:2009-10 domestic football (soccer) leagues using the new naming conventions. After that, I'm not sure whether we will be moving the remaining articles on a global season-by-season basis or competition-by-competition, but the moves will be done. I have been trying to get all of the Spanish competition season articles moved using a bot, but people seem to be ignoring my request at WP:BOTREQ. – PeeJay 09:25, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

PeeJay, you forgot to mention Category:2009-10 domestic football (soccer) cups, Category:2009 domestic football (soccer) leagues and Category:2009 domestic football (soccer) cups. ;-) The 09-10 leagues and cups are all in the right place now (except for one cup article which could use a general renaming), the 09 leagues are done except for the South American leagues (which are currently negotiating a new article format dealing with Apertura and Clausura seasons). Some 09 cups must still be moved, but I will do this later today.

As for the bot, I tried a similar request for the German articles in September, but got no response as well. It seems that if we want to get it done, we must do it by ourselves. The source code for the bot which was used to move the English articles could be out there somewhere, I'll take a look later today.

If anybody wants to move any article to the "new" format until the bot has been created, feel free to do so! --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 12:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Update The 2009 cup category has also been completed; the source code for the "English seasons" bot can be found here. The code doesn't look too complicated, however, I need some more detail knowledge on some parts (wtf is actually imported at the top???) in order to re-use it for our purposes... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 22:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way, a possible reason for the unanswered requests could be that the creator of the original bot is on indefinite absence... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...}

John Cuffe

Looking through allfootballers.com today I came across John Cuffe who played over 250 matches for Glossop North End A.F.C. in the early 1900s and is credited with being the first Australian to play in the Football League. Given most of the article is devoted to his cricket career, I was wondering if anyone knew of/had any good references for Glossop around about this time so the football section could be expanded.Hack (talk) 08:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Soccer players who are a fish

Hi there, several players are a small tropical fish now. The page sweeper seemed to be moved sometime without correcting the link. Maybe somebody would like to correct them (I've done a few), but there a much more left Special:WhatLinksHere/Sweeper to be linked either to Sweeper (football) or directly to Defender (association football)#Sweeper. Thanks and cheers. Sebastian scha. (talk) 13:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I have changed the links using AWB, no footballers now link to the sweeper page, only fish! GiantSnowman 13:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What about Billy the Fish? --Dweller (talk) 13:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

And Mark Fish...GiantSnowman 14:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

And Steve Guppy... --JonBroxton (talk) 16:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

And Prawn Wright-Phillips...thank-you and good-night! GiantSnowman 16:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Task Force-specific importance

Some other WikiProjects have Sub-Project/Task Force-specific importance fields in the Project Banners, most notably WP:WikiProject Biography, implemented in {{WikiProject Biography#Work group parameters}}. Some players, managers, etc. are simply more important/notable in some regions/countries than in others. Is there any interest in doing something such as that for FOOTY in {{Football}}? Do we want to assume that importance is global and not regional? Is this a decision we'd simply rather put off or not even ever implement? I recently reconsidered this idea when I was editing Oguchi Onyewu and noticed on his talk page that he is listed as Mid-importance, which assigns him as such in the USA and Canada, England, and Italy subs; in reality, he's clearly only a Mid in the USA. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This is indeed now possible for taskforces under the WP:FOOTY banner. To assign a taskforce-specific importance to an article, simply change the taskforce parameter in {{Football}} from "[task_force]=yes" to "[task_force]=Low", "[task_force]=Mid", "[task_force]=High" or "[task_force]=Top". Thanks. – PeeJay 17:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Asian footballers

I don't know if anyone in the UK can remember but a few months ago there was a bit of a hoo-ha about the lack of British-Asians in football. I'm thinking of writing an article about it, but was wondering:

(a) if people think it's worthy of an article

and

(b) if people have suggestions for titles?

Cheers, GiantSnowman 22:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You're talking about Britons of South Asian ancestry or Asians footballers who have moved to play in Britain?Hack (talk) 07:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

British Asians, I believe. I'm not sure that it's worth an article in itself considering that it would be drawn almost entirely from a handful of newspaper columns, and we don't have an article for, say, british black footballers; there's maybe enough material available for one unified race in association football article though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

i would agree with that, to have a page on its own about a lack of a certain 'race' of footballers from britain wouldn't be needed. I dont know about what the papers said about it but i would say that there is a lack of natural talent from all races in british football not just asians, probably brought on by the fact that they are not getting the chances that they used to due to massive influx in foreign cash (especially in england). (Monkeymanman (talk) 19:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC))

Isn't this verging into Racism in association football territoty though? - I don't want to highlight just the negative, also the positive. GiantSnowman 20:04, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I cannot see what would be positive about an article stating that there is a lack of asian footballers, apart from perhaps to enlighten others of this fact. Perhaps it might be down to there being a small percentage (compared to other ethnic comunities) of asians in this country playing the game to the level that would make professional participation possible. I suppose it could be included in the UK racism in football page but is this racism if asian people in this country are choosing not to participate?(Monkeymanman (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC))

this could not be covered in a racism article firstly we couold not prove the clubs are favouring white people instead of blac people or asians or any reglision. secondly it could jsut be the people do not want ot play football so a article on it seems to be pointless it prboally go straight to afd and fail--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 22:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no evidence that the lack of British Asians involved with football is anything to do with discrimination, hence why it wouldn't fit in the Racism in association football article. Also, there are many positives - the first Asian referee, Asian players in the Premiership, big clubs directly targeting young Asian players for their academies. If no-one raises any further issues, I'll create an article called something like British Asians in association football. Cheers, GiantSnowman 00:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What are you going to put in it? Would those same 'asians' not class themselves as british now if they came from this country? Or are you talking about asian players who have been bought from the continent of asia and are now playing in the premiership like Ji sung park?(Monkeymanman (talk) 14:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC))

People who would be classified as British Asian i.e. British people of Asian origin as opposed to Asian players playing in Britain. So it'd be people like Michael Chopra, Zesh Rehman, Anwar Uddin etc. GiantSnowman 14:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Unindent

Might be worth an article. Here's a couple of suggestions:

An Asian Rangers fans experience of racism at Ibrox [3]."If hooliganism was the English disease, racism was a particularly virulent strain of the infection. Far-right political parties openly hawked their literature outside clubs such as Leeds United, Millwall, Chelsea and Rangers on match days. The National Front recruited at the turnstiles and printed alternative league tables showing the positions of the clubs after goals by black players had been deleted." [4] Nedao.glasgow (talk) 19:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC) Maybe this too?: In the book "Race, Sport and British Society" by Ben Carrington and Ian McDonald, there was racist abuse of Celtic player Paul Wilson by Rangers fans in the 1970s "Rangers fans repeatedly bayed 'Wilson's a Paki' when Celtic played Rangers". (p. 40) [5] Nedao.glasgow (talk) 19:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point about this NEDAO, your POV attacks of Rangers (again) clearly shows your bias(again)(Monkeymanman (talk) 17:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

Do you think we should have a wiki page on Rangers racial abuse of minorities? See there was more of it last night. Nedao.glasgow (talk) 20:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Nationality question

What nationality was former Southend United and Cambridge United winger Tommy Horsfall? allfootballers.com lists his place of birth as Hamilton but doesn't provide a country...Hack (talk) 09:35, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

In this case, it almost certainly means Hamilton, South Lanarkshire. It would surely note on the site if he came from Hamilton, Ontario or one of the other Hamiltons overseas. Several present day footballers come from Hamilton (eg Paul Hartley, Barry Ferguson), therefore it would make sense that Hamilton, South Lanarkshire would not be disambiguated. I know that isn't proof but it is the most likely by far. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 09:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Sectarianism and Racism

Ok before i take this any further i want to clarify any rules and criteria about anything that exists so far that governs this type of thing within a clubs article.

Firstly is there any critira within MOS or anywhere within the project? Secondly Is this meant to take up a vast amount of space on an article or be summarised a lot to a few sentences? Thirdly what should be included and what should not?

If there is no such rules i think we should create them so that it is very clear to all editors what the pratices for this is and what should be incldued, what should not, and how much coverage.--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 19:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I would say that the extent to which any racism claims/issues should appear in a club's article is dependent on the individual circumstances and it's not appropriate to have 'rules' as to what should be included. If there is reasonable sources/references to any event it should potentially be included, but there should be care about 'recentism', and it may be minor issues are less appropriate to remain in the longer term? Eldumpo (talk) 21:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes this is my point, because fans of the clubs do not wan tit there, but also fans of the rival club add stuff but not ot thier own so thne there appears to be a biased alothugh i do not believe that with establish editors i assume you could see hwy that might be seen as that, so if there guidelines then people can see why something was added ot there club but not there rivals if that makes sense. i jsut think a clarifaction on what is right and wrong is needed so that there can be no case of biased etc. I am personally in favour of adding it ot my club and have support in talk a lot of additions but it now getitng out of control--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 21:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If there is a separate page devoted to sectarianism or racism in a particular city should the incidents involving this not be kept on that page rather than the football clubs article itself?(Monkeymanman (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC))

I woudl really like some other project member that either senior or long term to reply to this as it a convetisal issue and if it to remain a i think there need ot be guideliens in the MOS--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 13:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

This definitely doesn't need to go in any MoS. It is not an issue that affects the majority of clubs to any significant degree, so I don't think we need to set down a rule in stone to specify how racism needs to be dealt with in every club's article. That's like the FAC reviewer who I once saw commenting that as every English football club had hooliganism problems that an article on a club which did not cover hooliganism was not comprehensive -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

If it not in the MOS then there no guideliens to this as i keep getting told by another user, which means a section invlolving about 30-5 lines of material is not appiorate and should be removed, and summariesed toa small amount and a another article cover would oyu agree?--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 13:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Nacho Novo playing for Scotland

Nacho Novo is eligible for Scotland and is one of the SPL's best strikers, yet the SFA has said they will never select him. Is this racist or not? Please join in the discussion here. Many thanks, GiantSnowman 21:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

One of the SPL's best strikers - thanks for the comedy. You are clearly violating WP:OR here. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 08:05, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

He is now a scottish citizen, and he is not allowed to play for scotland because i quote he does not have 'a scottish bloodline' (scottish blood). He is being denied that right because of heritage (and heritage only) - discrimination pure & simple, so it is racist.(Monkeymanman (talk) 17:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

He is now a scottish citizen - erm, I really don't know where to start with that one... Jmorrison230582 (talk) 17:34, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

No he has gained scottish citzenship by fifa stupid rules, it about tiem they return football back to what ti was born abd breed in teh country, oh he isnt one of hte best strikers in scotland he techically a winger--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 17:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that you have a UK passport, go to the page with your picture on it. What does it say under "nationality"? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:05, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I dnt care what my passport says i am scottish through and thorugh, and ocne scotland gets indepence it will say scottish it british goverment that does not want scottish people--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 19:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

unindent

I would say that i am scottish which makes me british and i am very proud of both. So someone who has been at school for 5 years can play for scotland even tho they were not born here? Can you see the ridiculous situation that the home nations have got themselves in. If they did say what you are saying that only people who were born in the country can play for that country then that would solve a whole lot of problems, france are probably the worst offenders as they are allowed to pick folk from former colonies i.e. senegal and other countries in west africa, if they go down that route then why dont the home nations have the pick of virtualy the whole world as great britain did rule the majority of the world at one time(Monkeymanman (talk) 19:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

Uh huh. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 19:32, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Coprrect the rate this si goign at national football I SAY NATIONAL FOOTBAL FOR YOUR NATION will jsut become a global club market and lot at the scottish game it in dire straiat they need to bring back the rules where only peopel born in scotland can play for scotland can not play for any other country and each club have to have 6 or 7 home grown plays in teh team playing and when subsutiing they have to sub a scottish play for sottish palyer--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 19:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I know this is not a forum, but I think the situation in the United Kingdom is almost unique (Puerto Rico and the United States teams had a similar situation a few years ago), because there are multiple FIFA-recognized national teams within one nation. To my knowledge, France only has one FIFA-recognized national team (although New Caledonia's status is confusing to me), so someone born in a former French colony could not play for France until he became naturalized. Jogurney (talk) 19:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Now that would make a good wiki page. Eligibility to play for your national side. Different countries experience etc. Some people like Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy have been racially abused because of these decision. Maybe we could include that too? Nedao.glasgow (talk) 20:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Nacho Novo, Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy have been racially abused? Seriously what are you people on? They might have got a bit of stick but I think racial abuse is taking it just a bit far. -- BigDom 21:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't think Nacho Novo has been racially abused. Do you have a problem with the idea that McCarthy was racially abused BigDom and on what basis?[6][7] Don't be shy. Nedao.glasgow (talk) 21:32, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

If you said 'aiden mcgeady why dont you go home' or james mccarthy for that matter, i dont see what is racial abuse about that. The fact that it uses the same tune as the famine song is neither here nor there. Would you not say Nedao? Would you say that dundee are sectarian for singing the 'billy boys' even though the lyrics are different? I didnt think so. Or hull, even though the lyrics to their tune is different? No i didnt think so.(Monkeymanman (talk) 21:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

I'm starting to wonder whether you actually sing The Famine Song yourself? Nedao.glasgow (talk) 22:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

You're starting to wonder? :) --hippo43 (talk) 22:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Singing about the famine can't be racist because the people singing the songs were of the same race as the players in question. Scottish people are generally of the same race as Irish people so I really can't see how that can be racism. Racial abuse is when people are abused for their race, not their nationality and this is what some people on here seem to be getting confused by. -- BigDom 21:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with the majority of that Dom but soon NEDAO will post his favourite ref about how 3 supposedly 'neutral' judges in scotland ruled that it was.(Monkeymanman (talk) 22:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

The funny thing about it is celtic fans sing every game (and play over the tanoy at parkhead) fields of athenrye which is funnily enough all about the famine.(Monkeymanman (talk) 22:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

Dom - "According to the United Nations conventions, there is no distinction between the term racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination." GiantSnowman 22:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK and also some UN charters, as GS suggests. If you are derogatory on the basis of (perceived) nationality then it's racism too. Go and have a look at the wiki racism page. Nedao.glasgow (talk) 22:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

did your statement there not bring us full circle; 'on the basis of (perceived) nationality then it's racism too'(Monkeymanman (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

In what sense? Nedao.glasgow (talk) 22:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the place for this. Take it back to the Old Firm pages (or, ideally, off Wikipedia entirely). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Or take it here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#Sectarianism_and_Racism as this is the section i am trying to get this clarified and sorted once and far all--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 10:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Isn't there some rule about wikipedia not being a forum? --hippo43 (talk) 22:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM. GiantSnowman 22:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Usman Gondal

This player played in the youth teams of Nottingham Forest and Leciester City between 2001 and 2005, but he didn't retire from professional football until February 2007 - any idea which club he was attached to in those two years? GiantSnowman 11:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

He left "to concentrate" on work and higher education according to the source. That suggests to me that he wasn't at pro or semi-pro club when he made that decision. WFCforLife (talk) 16:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

He was still playing for Pakistan during that time, so maybe he was attached to the national team only, in a similar case to US national players in the early 90s. GiantSnowman 18:39, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that players had to be "attached" to the national side in any sense. We just use that as a convenient model for depicting the duration of service. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Signed for Arnold Town in Sep 06, though no idea if he played for them more than the once. Level 9 of pyramid, so not exactly professional... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Cheers Struway, do you have a source for his move there? GiantSnowman 12:34, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, thought I'd put it :-) http://www.nonleaguedaily.com/news/index.php?&newsmode=FULL&nid=37437 cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Cheers! GiantSnowman 12:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Any nice kind admins about...

Someone moved Niall Thompson to Niall Thompson (footballer) and turned it into a dab page to make room for an article which has since been deleted. They didn't fix the backlinks, so links that used to reach the footballer now land at the dab page. Please could someone kindly move it back. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Done, I think. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That was quick, I must try politeness more often... thanks, Struway2 (talk) 14:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Hugo Pérez

The article about the Argentine footballer Hugo Pérez was recently moved to make space for Hugo Pérez (American footballer). I believe that since both players have made a number of international appearances, neither could be considered the unambiguous primary usage. Hugo Pérez should become a disambiguation page and the American footballer should be moved to Hugo Pérez (American footballer). Could an admin arrange this please. Regards King of the North East 19:42, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Ideally the article on the American would be at Hugo Pérez (soccer). Then the Argentine could be at Hugo Pérez (footballer), and Hugo Pérez could be a disambig. GiantSnowman 20:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You should be able to move the Hugo Pérez page to Hugo Pérez (American footballer) without a problem and then change the left-over redirect to a dab page. However, I'm not sure that "American footballer" is the best disambiguator, considering he's a football (soccer) player rather than American football player (i.e. Gridiron). The convention for U.S. footballers seems to be to use "(soccer)". Either way, you can do all of these without admin help! – Toon 20:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I prefer my idea ;) GiantSnowman 20:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Rangers F.C.

There currently is an ongoing argument on the rangers fc discussion page about whether or not evidence of racial abuse of two individual instances should be allowed to be included on the clubs article.

There has been a couple of different inclusions that have been talked about, the one that the person seems determined about including reads like this 'Some Rangers fans racially abused former Celtic player Bobo Balde,[43][44] and former Rangers player Mark Walters was racially abused by some Celtic, Hearts and Rangers fans."[45][26]'

The problem i have with this is that it states that the abuse of mark walters is uniformed from all 3 teams which was certainly not the case. I proposed an alternative; 'In the past there has been racism directed to players on the pitch at rangers games, from both home and opposition fans.[27][29]'

This i feel gives a rounded reflection that racism has been evident in the past at rangers games but not just from home or away support. There is a similar sentence on the Real Madrid article whereby madrid have been investigated by uefa for racial abuse but it does not go into detail about it on the clubs article page. There is a separate article for racism in association football, this statement about each separate abuse from rangers fc games has been included already

The consensus originaly was to leave the article page as it was (apart from the person who wants this included)

I would be gratefull if anyone could give their opinion on this. Thanks(Monkeymanman (talk) 13:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC))

I'm glad we could resolve this issue. The view expressed in The Times newspaper, would reflect my view: "For years now Celtic Park – unlike Ibrox – has been largely free of sectarian or racist chanting." Under the circumstances, our neutral addition to the main text of the Rangers wiki page, "racism has been perpetrated by both home and opposition fans", lets Rangers off rather lightly. Nedao.glasgow (talk) 18:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I see that is that same POV reporting from the great GRAHAM SPIERS(Monkeymanman (talk) 17:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC))

What's your problem with The Times journalists Graham Spiers? Too honest for you... Nedao.glasgow (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Its a very POV stance on reporting(Monkeymanman (talk) 18:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC))

Alex Tapp

Does anyone with access to more detailed information know in which Redhill the player Alex Tapp was born? There seem to be several Redhills, and no clear indication of which one is his birthplace. Thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Almost certainly Surrey. It says here he was with Chipstead F.C. as a boy, which is only a couple of miles from Redhill Surrey, and Wimbledon F.C. (when it was in Wimbledon) wasn't much further. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

NF Board national teams.

I am a bit confused on the consensus for national teams of this nature. I saw West Papua national football team was deleted and Western Sahara national football team wasn't. Western Sahara national team is in an even worse state. It clearly doesn't exist any more. So why keep the article under no consensus? Surely it should of been deleted? Govvy (talk) 18:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it should've gone. Either take it to WP:DRV or back to WP:AFD. GiantSnowman 18:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

That a team does not exist any more is no reason for deletion. Notability is not temporary. The issue is whether the team that played those matches was a genuinely representative team of a genuine ethnic group. Kevin McE (talk) 20:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Or arguably, in the case of Western Sahara, an occupied country.Hack (talk) 01:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I had a word on the admin's talk page, raising the point that discussion was ongoing, to which I was told that "as it had been seven days, the conversation had expired." 1 Which is clearly rubbish given that the last post was 15 minutes before closure, but I'd probably be wasting my time trying to challenge it. Do let me know if you decide to though.

As an aside, whether it's a representative team, a country, or even exists anymore, the dispute was whether it could actually assert any sort of notability, with the keep argument effectively being "it doesn't need to show notability, it's a country's football team", and the delete one being "it may be a national football team, but it still needs to show notability." I agree that whether it's "active" or "a real country" makes no difference. WFCforLife (talk) 09:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I have asked the admin why closed the AfD as opposed to relist it...and as for notability of the Western Sahara team, it is a team which represents a nation that doesn't technically exist, and which hasn't played a game for 15 years...GiantSnowman 10:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of those points (which are slightly irrelevant, as on that basis we should delete Great Britain national football team), the issue is that a no consensus decision was made on a debate which was clearly moving towards consensus. WFCforLife (talk) 11:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

GB actually exists as a country though, and has competed in the Olympics, winning Gold...GiantSnowman 12:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

But, depending on who you may ask, Western Sahara is a real country, too, although most of the world doesn't recognize it as such. You could say the same about the footy teams of Northern Cyprus, Tibet, and several other NF-Board teams. China still doesn't recognize the nationhood of the Republic of China even though the rest of the world does and their national football team, the Chinese Taipei national football team, has been a FIFA member since 1954. In most cases – and by that I mean instances where the "national football team" in question represents a "nation" and not just an ethnic group or subnation – the majority of the world might say that a country is not a real (read:legitimate) country even though some would say it that it is or rather should be its own country, which is exactly why they're on the NF-Board in the first place and not members of FIFA. My point is that you or someone else may say somewhere is "not a real country" while others would that it is. Because this is a subject matter that could easily offend individuals who would associate themselves with such "nations" and "national teams", it's important to keep notability as the prime criteria, not "most recent activity" or "they're not a real country" as the reasoning. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 17:41, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I started a deletion review for Western Sahara, but it was pointed out to me that the practise is never to relist unless it's because of lack of participation. I think that practise absolutely stinks in cases where a deviation from it would clearly have led to consensus, but procedure has been followed so I've withdrawn it.

I was going to relist it at AfD, but I don't see the point in nominating these types of articles unless there's a clear idea of what should be done about them. I disagree with keeping ones such as Western Sahara, but deleting some articles and keeping almost identical ones is surely even worse. My opinion is that all national (or "national") teams are worthy of coverage on wikipedia, but that coverage has got to be proportionate to what can be sourced. A full blown article for one which cites no meaningful sources, and fails to do so when called upon, should not automatically be kept. In this instance a proposed solution was the creation of a Sport in Western Sahara article, which meant that information about the football team could have been given based on the minimal list-like sources, and information on other sports, such as the potentially well sourced Aussie Rules football, could also have been given. It would have been a meaningful article, in my opinion improved the coverage of sport as a whole in Western Sahara, and there was nothing to prevent the re-creation of Western Sahara national football team in future, provided there was something meaningful to write. WFCforLife (talk) 09:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

My two main points before, that Western Sahara have never played competition football and haven't operated in how long? My other point, it seems they tried to join NF Board but didn't get in or even play in any NF Board competitions. How does this work out??????? Govvy (talk) 21:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Once again, notability is not temporary, so this repeated criticism that they have not played for several years is a total red herring. As a corollary to that, that they have not been active during the 6 years or so that the NFB has been around is irrelevant. Three questions seem relevant:

• Is the population that they seek to represent genuinely describable as a nation (which is not the same as a country, but any country is a nation)? Clearly yes: 49 countries recognise it as a country.
  • Yes, and therefore we have Western Sahara.
• Was the team genuinely representative of that nation? I suspect evidence either way would be hard to find, but it seems noteworthy that major clubs seemed to take them seriously in this regard.
  • Probably, and therefore we should probably cover the football team somewhere within wikipedia's coverage of Western Sahara.
• Is there any meaningful information that can be provided about the team during the years that it was apparently active? There are no sources posted on the team for the 1984-94 era that it would have to rely on to make a claim of notability. Kevin McE (talk) 08:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
  • It seems not, and therefore the best way to cover the team probably isn't a full-blown article. WFCforLife (talk) 10:09, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Kevin where is your sources? Are you sure there are 49 countries that recognise them or just 49 regions in conflict (political unrest)? We have Western part of Sahara It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world So how recognised is it to it's own population? Govvy (talk) 14:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Non-players with World Cup medals

After learning about the story of Les Cocker (which I have sent to DYK, if anyone can think of a better hook...), a little notability question popped into my head - are coaches, physios etc. who were part of a World Cup winning squad notable? GiantSnowman 11:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes these backroom staff get significant publicity, eg Teddy Scott was Aberdeen's kitman for donkeys, and was eventually rewarded with a testimonial match against Manchester United. He is technically notable for another reason (he played once for Aberdeen's first team), but his real notability is for his long service in other capacities. Apart from cases like that I don't think there is a case for saying that kitmen / physios are notable as of right. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that kitmen are a bit far, but staff with a more active role - what about the Assistant Manager & team coaches? GiantSnowman 14:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

If they satisfy the GNGs, then they're obviously notable, but out of hand I wouldn't say that a physio is notable, even if they do have a World Cup winner's medal. – PeeJay 17:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Look at it from first principles. The reason that full-time footballers are notable is not because they're full-time footballers: it's because their occupation guarantees that dozens of reliable sources will cover them every Saturday. The same is not necessarily true of backroom staff. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:01, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Huddersfield Town F.C. - The Fans' Favourites

Potential copyvio? GiantSnowman 15:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Probably. There are those that would argue that the results of a poll aren't copyrightable, but since they were published in a commerically available work, I'd say that copyvio is an issue here. – PeeJay 17:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of copyvio, it looks to fail WP:BK, so I'vs PRODded it. GiantSnowman 11:54, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Man City chairman

I'm trying to bring the article on Khaldoon Al Mubarak up to GA, I'd appreciate if people have time to help, comments at the current peer review would be most welcome. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

What Links Here & Templates

It seems that Wikipedia considers all players in the same template as being a legitimate reason to have them separately linked via 'what links here', when logically it is only the template that should be linked (unless there are other separate links). For example, Steve Tilson is included on Template:Southend United F.C. managers, and this page also appears under his What Links Here. But Bob Jack also appears on his WLH page, even though there's no specific links (other than the template). I think it would be clearer/easier (e.g. for checking incorrect links) if these players were not separately linked. Do others agree, and if so is there anything that can be done about it? Eldumpo (talk) 14:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Um, maybe it's because the two ARE linked? - I can go to Tilson's page, and with one click, link directly to Jack's page...I don't see what the problem is to be honest. GiantSnowman 14:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you would still be able to do that via the template, but Jack's page shouldn't be shown as a direct link to Tilson's (using WLH) as there is no text in either directly referring to the other - their connection is via the template which would still remain under 'What Links Here'. Perhaps a better example is found by Johnny Paton, a redlink featured on Template:Watford F.C. managers. If you were doing a WLH for Paton in readiness for writing an article for him (thus understanding what may already be said about him on Wiki), you would see a load of entries but as far as I can see they are all Watford managers who are only linked to him via the template - but obviously you might miss one without laboriously checking off each one. Am I getting across my query? Eldumpo (talk) 16:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If you click on WLH, you would surely see the template as well, and use some common sense to put 2 and 2 together...GiantSnowman 16:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If you see a load of names under WLH and also a Template... entry then it will lead you to believe most of the names are from that template, but without checking off each one (or clicking on each one) you won't know, and even then one of the WLH names could be linked via the template and via 'normal text' in their article. Is anyone else following this? Eldumpo (talk) 19:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I completely get what you mean. But you shouldn't use information already in Wikipedia as the basis for an article, you should use reliable, external sources...GiantSnowman 20:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing that can be done about it. WhatLinksHere doesn't take into consideration whether a link is via a transcluded template or direct. It's a limitation of the feature. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Fábio Aurélio stats table

Why does the statistics table on Fábio Aurélio's article drop to the bottom of the article? Can someone help me out here? Cheers, --Jimbo^[online] 14:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed - there was a spare dash at the foot of the table. Cheers, GiantSnowman 14:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Killed Colombian team

Is this team notable enough to deserve a mention anywhere? Spiderone 16:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking about that when I saw the news this morning. The comment "The team, kidnapped two weeks ago, was known as Los Maniceros or Peanut Men, as they sold nuts along the border" means they were almost definitely a low-level, local, amateur side, so they don't meet sporting guidelines. As for general notability, I think it is a case of WP:NOTNEWS. GiantSnowman 16:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I concur that if the team don't play at a high enough level, WP:NOTNEWS should apply. пﮟოьεԻ 57 10:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the article now exists and is still featured on WP's main page "in the news". I updated our banner to show it as a start-class article, but I didn't know what the importance would be. Low? Mid? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Tommy Smith (footballer born 1980)

I'm starting to work on this guy, I reckon there's a pretty good article to be had. His dad was the academy manager at Watford when Tommy and his brother Jack came through the ranks. This is just a hypothesis, but I reckon there's a good chance that his dad played professional football, quite possibly Dave Smith (footballer born 1950). On the other hand a footballer of the same name and generation to his father could be a complete coincidence- it is after all a very common name. Either way I thought it was worth a punt to see if anyone here could point me in the right direction. WFCforLife (talk) 21:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

League tables

Does anyone know of a website that could show me the order of the Premier League table as of a particular date? I'm trying to find a reliable source for Ipswich Town's position in the league prior to their 9-0 defeat to Manchester United back in March 1995, but I'm drawing blanks. The only thing I can think of is to go through every single result from the 1994-95 season up to that point and construct the table myself, but I doubt that would be considered a reliable source. Any help? – PeeJay 22:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

here. WFCforLife (talk) 22:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This is the league table after the 2-0 defeat to Newcastle - the game before the 9-0 loss. -- BigDom 22:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Those sites are fantastic! Thanks guys! – PeeJay 00:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Mass confusion in SDC/AfD/PROG for particular football-based categories. Heeeeelp!

Hello, and Heeeeelp!--

Please note: I'm deliberately not including links or diffs to the articles and users in question. Since this is all subjective until discussed by people who obviously know more about the project rules here than normal deletion patrol, I'd rather not good names be smeared unnecessarily. Everything I mention is a larger concept and shouldn't need it anyway. I also thought this would be more helpful than an ANI or unspecific request for comment.

After spending a few hours patrolling new pages and new pages marked for speedy deletion, something because very obvious to me very quickly. There seemed to be tens, and then hundreds of articles within a very specific subcategory where the majority seem to have one point been or are part of a proposed deletion.. There are three things I find exacerbating the situation: A very low number of users creating an extremely large number of articles, Difference in notability standards within the Football portal, and user tagging/deleting of articles seeming a random grab in a bag between PROD, AfD and CSD-A7 with no actual consistency and/or wild variability depending on the overseeing administrator.

The first few instances times I caught club articles up for speedy delete, it was as I expected and I saw many articles that would have an "iffy-A7" open but all of those had holds placed by the author. Wow, the system was working! Fantastic! I'd look at the article talk pages and saw authors leaving remarks like "Have just started this page let me finish gathering info please" when adding the hangon tag. Well, I'll go on good faith, and although an article not being finished doesn't guard it from deletion (no Wikipedia article is ever finished!), I'll take a CSD tag off and put a normal PROD on so that if it never gets updated it will probably filter through properly. Every single club article was the same, with a 1-line introduction, player roster, standard small infobox and absolutely nothing more. No citations, no external resources (which was the main logic of the A7s), no notability.

I mark that last one in particular because, after research, I see that your notability guidelines here are amazingly(!) precise. Fair to guess that few if anyone discussing or deleting articles tagged this way know the rule variants. After substantial confusion started to gargle about in my head, I figured I'd research backwards through user edit logs and user contributions to try to find the "parent" source so we can get someone communication up and prevent further mess. This was about when I saw it was just a handful of users that have been adding articles slowly over the past few years where all of these tagged articles come from, all about low-regional level clubs. Wait. Why am I not at the Football Project as top? I was just here and things should bring me here or to the football page of the general sports portal eventually. Why are there tons of red links all over the place? Why are there articles dating back a few years that are in the exact same condition as the new creations. Oh dear. The discussion page on all of them proclaim "Have just started this page let me finish gathering info please" (and similar). Apparently anyone who had ever come and shown good faith by removing a CSD tag or marking a normal PROD from the start has been completely duped. The same few users have been claiming for years that they're quickly gathering more information, for what appears to be over 100 clubs.

Why are all these article creations being marked for deletion in various ways? The template being used for the clubs is not the official one given in the project for use. Looking at the real one, it's entirely clear to me that the authors never had any intention whatsoever of improving the articles, since they'd gutted the template to but a few basics they had felt like placing. No article ever published by these select few has ever been upgrade and all have the exact deficit in citations, resources and do not meet notability requirements (to your standards-- they are all lower-level clubs). Worse yet, some articles for very low-level clubs have been filled with red links for player articles. Even worse is that some of these players in starting leagues actually have an article. Besides your notability standards, the player bio articles are a gutted form of your official one, and also lack any citation or reference as you say you require.

Help? There are some normal, real completed articles in these areas, but the majority are more likely than not need... something. They don't meet this Project's notability guidelines and are questionable at best in regular space. Deletes? No? An easier solution would be to say "aha! WP:OTHERSTUFF!" and call it a day, but this wouldn't stop more articles coming in to the categories. Can't just protect them either since there are normal articles. It's of no personal importance what any decision might be, and thus I won't give the problem any kind of name as a hypothesis. Any guidance at all... pretty please? If left alone it will just continue to soak up volunteering user time. Thanks... Datheisen (talk) 11:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to tell what you want people here to do, but I think the best course of action is to give a small heads-up request for attention here if you see an editor producing a large number of borderline or questionable articles. It's not "smearing their good name" at all - if you edit here, you have to expect that other people will critically consider your work. It's also hard to give any guidance whilst talking in vague generalities about the situation - in most cases it will take a bit of discussion and research to gauge the notability and quality of the articles, and what to do with them.

There's no big rush to make a decision/delete/tag/... in these matters, as long as there is enough eyes on the matter that it doesn't get forgotten completely and gets done eventually - and the best way to get eyes on the matter is by posting here.

So - are there any sets of articles in particular you want to discuss at the moment? Knepflerle (talk) 11:54, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm also struggling to follow the original post, but would mention that this project has a cleanup listing page (with thousands of articles needing work) that we do monitor and work to reduce. If the original poster has suggestions on how to make the cleanup process more robust or timely, I would be happy to hear them. Jogurney (talk) 12:57, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I plea guilty for dragging my words on so much. Anyway, I've been thinking about it more and I think what I can summarize it down to a few points:

• Enhance the ability of normal PROD or page concern tags such that they can warn you after a set amount of time to go back and look at a page that you first saw in the new article list. The aim here would be to heavily reduce A7s an G11s that are extremely borderline, as normal editors they could now make an option to check later when they might have a fresh view.. The upshot here is that if we think we can label things a few modified ways as it's coming on to the encyclopedia, and it then is in plain sight for other people to examine and slightly later asked for a CSD delete decision or not? A lot more effective. Or... An iffy CSD A7, tag it secretively and it'll show up in logs and lists in X days if the article hasn't been modified and had a peer look-over. Then the CSD or AfD could be added immediately kind of as a message of "okay, good faith buffer starting to wear". We can give good faith to contributors without directly interrupting their process yet still always have an eye on any suspicious behavior at the same time.
• "Un-Vandal" tag? Some kind of note of user/IP repeated article publish, large adds or + size edits instead of the opposites. Tag use might be determined in the same way some vandalism is spotted, by repeated edits or further publishing, or by just very large amounts of user activity in general... but the invisible tag would act as a white list entry. This could give people who happen to bring in articles that aren't quite complete yet one of the common last-minute changes a chance to worked on it ASAP without risk of someone slapping a CSD on before they can fix the generic "sources" note someone left them. Could of course help spot vandals, as well, in a place rarely considered for it.
• A way for projects to have a public forum where they can list specific criteria they'd like considered if a new article comes in for it and existing post is being edited or tagged. The special notability guidelines in this project are a perfect example that would have even further reduce A7s, since things that might look "odd" to some English cultural groups might be a 100% normal to others. Less things marked for deletion while coming in and article destination smooths out average workload.

All three of these would have helped in this kind of situation a few reviewers got shoved into in my case, but the biggest things would be to try to smooth out troubles and comments when moving between in-project and wider site audience, and if A7s can be chopped down even a little? Admins can take longer doing... other admit stuff? :)

Datheisen (talk) 17:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

If you're talking about changing how PROD templates work I think you'll need to go to the Village pump; as great as this Project is, we can't do that kind of thing! GiantSnowman 17:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that the deletion process is too complicated and we have too many new articles appearing each day that will end up staying couse we wan´t have time to discuss their deletion. I don´t really know how speedy deletion works, but it should eliminate, at least, the players articles that look like this (non-existing exemple):

José Luis Pirez

José Luis Pirez (born Cordoba 1991) is a Templetonian footballer playing in Tempo FC.

Category:Living people

I found many articles like this one, that I think people make them so the players names wan´t be RED in their favourite club page. For some time now I´m completing this kind of pages (when the player is Notable) with infoboxes and searching their careers. But in 80% of the cases, are players with low league careers or youngsters born already in the 90´s. This kind of pages should be speedy deleted, and only comlete (as possible) articles should stay. When I want to make some players page, I pospone it until I gather as many information as I can, but, many other people don´t do it that way. If we deleted this kind of pages, we will eliminate, I supose, between 25 to 50 % of football players biographies. FkpCascais (talk) 23:07, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think those articles need to be speedily deleted. PROD works pretty well for most of them. Typically, a newbie editor might create a dozen or more biographies of non-notable footballers with no sources and then leave Wikipedia after a month or so. These usually wind up as uncontested PRODs and are deleted after a week's time. The only problem is when editors remove PRODs of such articles for no reason (but this seems to happen only rarely). Jogurney (talk) 03:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

To AFC or not to AFC

Why is that AFC Wimbledon are always referred to as such, yet A.F.C. Bournemouth are often piped to simply "Bournemouth", e.g. "Jason Tindall (15 November 1977 in Mile End, Greater London) is an English football player for Bournemouth." It's doubly confusing given that there's also a club actually called Bournemouth...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Out of interest, how common is use of the nickname Poppies in reference to Bournemouth F.C.?Hack (talk) 13:23, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The difference in usage is probably because AFC Bournemouth are the "big club" from Bournemouth, and (I generalise here :-) no-one realised there was a Bournemouth FC, whereas Wimbledon FC was the "big club" from Wimbledon, only relatively recently deceased, and everyone's heard of both? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Because... (drum roll) reliable sources generally refer to them as such. End of story. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 06:41, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

PASE player?

The article Ebbsfleet United F.C. says that Aidan Sherlock and Tom Phipps are "PASE players". I havent been able to find out what that means. Can someone help me out? And if the term so vague, should it be included? Afaict, the term isn't used in any other article. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 21:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

"Just a reminder, PASE (Programme for Academic and Sporting Excellence) is an educational scheme for BOYS AND GIRLS, aged between 16 - 18, who wish to continue with their education whilst receiving daily football sessions from Licensed Coaches that have experience in coaching NATIONAL and PROFESSIONAL Squads." Source

Should be explained. Madcynic (talk) 22:05, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

United States

Currently the template link {{nft|United States}} links to United States national football team. Can someone with the technical wherewithal please edit the template so that it instead links to United States men's national soccer team? I'm not sure how to do it. Thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 07:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Could someone also do that for Australia. This week it is Australia national association football team...Hack (talk) 08:14, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The template is not advanced in anyway, its just [[{{{1}}} national football team|{{{1}}}]] so it will link where write. For the United States "USA national football team" redirects to the right article... It would perhaps be good if we could use the flag templates resources for the nft template. I'm pretty sure I wrote a template for this usage Template:Flaglink2 but someone deleted it. (and If I dont remember correctly it didn't 100% solve the problem, I don't think it was possible to use subst: with it, but I'm not sure... I think it would've been like {{fb}} but without the flag) chandler 10:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I searched through my sandboxes and I think I found a saved version. It would be converting {{fb}} into this: United States, [[|]], West Germany, [[|]], etc. It allows everything fb does, but also the "noflag" option chandler 11:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little confused with your template chandler. – Michael (talk) 13:54, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

In essence it's a copy of {{fb}}, but with the added ability to not show the flag. The internal formatting is a bit complex though it has to do with the {{country data}} templates (example) chandler 15:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed, but you can't subst the template anymore. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

This is good, but I think we might have to have a bigger discussion before putting this into place and replacing nft which I think many people use (with subst:). chandler 19:23, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, undone. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

No no no! Don't undo it... the fix was perfect! --JonBroxton (talk) 19:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

To 're-open', what about just adding the "noflag" option to the {{fb}} template (and fbu and fbw), for usage in perhaps player infoboxes of lists, while in text it might be better to use the nft template to produce the actual text. chandler 13:33, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer to see dedicated non-flag templates instead of adding a conditional parser function to each flag template. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:19, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

englandstats.com

I'm getting 404 errors trying to access http://www.englandstats.com Is this just me, or a temporary thing, or a domain change, does anyone know, because the site is used rather a lot on here for references and external links, and it'd be a pain if it has died... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a temporary problem. I had the same thing with my laptop at home yesterday and again this morning, but it's OK from my PC here at work now. Very strange. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:12, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

This is all rather strange. I still get the 404 error message on both my PC and laptop at home, but it's fine here in the office. Can someone else take a look and report back? --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:34, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It's OK for me now... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Calum Davenport

Reuters reports that Calum Davenport (West Ham United) has been charged with "assault causing actual bodily harm". Please keep an eye out for vandalism and BLP violations. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 15:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

When the truth is so farfetched, who needs vandalism? Thanks for the heads up. WFCforLife (talk) 19:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Olympic teams naming conventions

I always thought that teams which played in the Olympics were under-23, with a naming convention of Wikipedia national under-23 football team, but a quick glance at Category:Olympic football teams shows a different naming convention...which is correct? GiantSnowman 16:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Why would they be named "under-23"? Not only is that only being firmly enforced (with no exceptions) in the future, but it has varied wildly over the years (historically there wasn't an age restriction). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:40, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Because in the past - after the advent of the professional game - the Olympic teams have been restricted to a squad made up entirely of under-23 players, apart from (I think) four overage players. GiantSnowman 22:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

We could call them Brazil sometimes entirely, sometimes predominantly and sometimes not-at-all under-23 national football team. That's obviously a facetious suggestion, but I think "Olympic" is the most succinct and accurate way of naming the team. In any case, aren't the only "U23" competitions the Olympic qualifiers and the Olympic finals? WFCforLife (talk) 23:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe that Brazil, and perhaps other nations, do occasionally enter an under-23 team for senior competitions such as the CONCACAF Gold Cup. However, if consenus is that the naming conventions in the aforementioned category are OK, I'm cool with that - I just wanted to make sure we were all singing from the same hymn sheet is all. GiantSnowman 23:27, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

three overage players was the limit and regardless of what Brazil do with entering teams in senior competitions, for official purposes, if it is a senior competition it is the senior team that officially is there, even if they are all U17 one legged blind players... but I digress.

That category was recently created, and only seems to contain 2 teams currently. I thought I might add the local olympic teams, but it turns out that the women's competition has no such age restriction, and most send their senior national side. Over time this category could feasibly contain multiple teams from each country as they change the rules. --ClubOranje^T 00:44, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Marc Richards' goal tally

For this season, is it 8 or 9? The debate comes around a goal initially credited to Tommy Fraser. Fraser claimed it was Richards goal. Soccerbase and the the official site keep him at 8 goals, crediting Fraser with the goal. However Richards carries on as though it has been officially credited to him, other sources now credit him with nine (and here). To demonstrate the confusion, the original BBC report now can't make up its mind over who scored the goal, having since changed the report to say Marc Richards in the summary. So do we say 8 or 9?--EchetusXe 16:51, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

RKC Waalwijk

Just a heads up: Dutch football club RKC Waalwijk is expected to be declared bankrupt either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. See [8]. Please keep an eye out for vandalism to RKC Waalwijk, 2009–10 Eredivisie, Eredivisie and related articles that might be vandalized by angry fans. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 12:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears that RKC has been rescued at the eleventh hour, so I don't think we'll get a vandalism spree now. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 22:25, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Wilnis & Bruma

This is a bit of a long shot, but does anyone have a source for Jeffrey Bruma being Fabian Wilnis' nephew? I've made a few onlines search but cannot find anything. --Jimbo^[online] 14:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Jeffrey Bruma is the younger brother of Marciano van Homoet (who played as Marciano Bruma in the Netherlands). Algemeen Dagblad states that Marciano van Homoet/Bruma is the cousin (not nephew) of Wilnis. If Marciano and Wilnis are cousins, so are Jeffrey and Wilnis. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 15:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Out of interest, why is Marciano van Homoet's article located there and not at Marciano Bruma if he is known by that latter name?! GiantSnowman 15:13, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

According to the article: "Van Homoet ... was originally known as Bruma, but was forced to change his name ... by the FA when Barnsley sent in his registration ... . He had always been known as Marciano Bruma in the Netherlands, after dropping his father’s surname as a young child when his parents split up. But the FA insisted he should use the name on his birth cerificate." It appears that the FA has registered Marciano (van Homoet) under his father's name and Jeffrey (Bruma) under his mother's name. The BBC uses the name Van Homoet for Marciano and Bruma for Jeffrey. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 15:20, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes but just because the FA used 'Van Homoet' for a season doesn't mean that's his name - in the Netherlands he is still known as Marciano Bruma, as well as in Germany and Spain...GiantSnowman 15:26, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Willem II (his current club) and the Eredivisie (the league) call him Bruma as well. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 15:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I have moved Marciano's page to its correct title. GiantSnowman 16:17, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Marlon King

A few eyes would be appreciated over the next day or so. It's semi-protected but it'll still be vulnerable to vandalism and unsourced, potentially libellous comments. WFCforLife (talk) 17:07, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Sportspeople convicted of a crime

Do I include Luke Prosser? He was banned from driving for a week and fined less than a weeks wages.--EchetusXe 21:56, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Afaik speeding counts as a misdemeanor and therefore as a crime, and he was convicted for it. So yeah, he should probably be included. But do we really want a category like this? Isn't this the epitome of trivial? Isn't this overcategorization? 94.212.31.237 (talk) 22:06, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

As Mr IP above says (you really should register!), yes he should be included, but I too have my doubts about this category's usefulness. GiantSnowman 22:08, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it has been deleted now. thnx.--EchetusXe 01:38, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a big problem with the category (although I will never add to it, unless the crime is football related, as I don't see the relevance to the individuals notability generally speaking. However, misdemeanours should not be listed here. Half the footballing population have picked up a speeding ticket, so why single out the odd individual who has had their one noticed by recent media. To my mind it should only include crime generally punishable by imprisonment.--ClubOranje^T 06:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Primera División (part 2)

Digirami pointed out to me that in the archives, a discussion over disambiguating the Primera División articles and consistency had already taken place. Someone had mentioned that there were three options:

As I see it, in the Spanish speaking leagues, we have three options, for consistency.
1) Use the full Spanish names (steal them from es:), this would give this:

• • Primera División de México, 2008–09 Primera División de México season

2) Use a English format by mixing the languages, so no-one has to be confused about that "España" is "Spain" for example.

• • Mexican Primera División, 2008–09 Mexican Primera División season

3) Use English names inside a disambiguate parentheses, so no-one has to be confused about that "España" is "Spain" for example.

• • Primera División (Mexico), 2008–09 Primera División season (Mexico)

I noticed that the first option was referred to as the full Spanish name, though by looking at the league website, it's full Spanish name is simply Primera División Profesional. The "de México" would be an appropriate disambiguation for the Spanish wikipedia but I think its naming in the English wikipedia is questionable. Seeing as how the South American football associations have consistent namings, why can't the leagues follow a similar pattern.

I'm bringing this up because I wasn't present in the first discussion and I'd like to see if anyone had changed their minds or were willing to find some consistency. --MicroX (talk) 23:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I prefer option 3, then 1.

There is a fourth option which I am strongly against. It is "Primera Division Mexicana". "Mexicana" is Spanish for "Mexican", but the problem with that is Argentina. "Argentine" in Spanish is "Argentina", same as the name of country. This might prove confusing to non-Spanish speakers, who will then want to change the format so the country is at the end.

Of course this goes to a larger discussion on the appropriate naming convention of a league. Do we go with the official non-commercial name, the official commercial name, or the most common variation of the official name (i.e. short name) spoken in the English (which in this case, is still Primera Division)? I prefer the latter. Most of these Primera Divisions have a long official name, like Chile. Under their most recent league regulations, their full official non-commercial name is "Primera División del Fútbol Profesional Chileno", but it is simply called the Primera Division. Pick a league and it is like that. Spain: "Primera Division de la Liga Nacional de Futbol Profesional", but it is either referred to as "La Liga" (rather inaccurately) or "Primera Division". Digirami (talk) 23:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I prefer option 2, the name of the league is undisputably Primera División, translating to Premier Division would go against WP:COMMON. If we use Mexican/Argentine/Chilean Primera División as disambiguation, the meaning is clear and the countless links to other articles would fit into prose without the need for brackets. King of the North East 23:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Official commercial names should be avoided because they can change. I oppose the Premier Division translation because the Peruvian league will officially change their league (Primera División or Descentralizado) to División Premier for 2011 and the current Segunda División will be called Primera División, so avoid the Mexican Premier Division translation. I'm in favor of the Mexican Primera División naming or the Primera División (Mexico) naming, leaning more towards the former per King of the North East's arugment. --MicroX (talk) 00:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Starting from the beginning of creating and naming an article, the common name of the league – even in the English-speaking world – is "Primera División", so that should be the name of the article, which follows the exception given under WP:Naming conventions#Use English words for when the common name among anglophones is a non-English name. However, there are multiple leagues throughout the Spanish-speaking world known by that same name, and as per WP:Disambiguation#Disambiguation page or disambiguation links?, Primera División should be a disambiguation page that links to all of the various "Primera División" articles, which is how it stands now. We're on the right track so far. Next, WP:NCDAB gives several guidelines for disambiguating article titles. Rule #3 recommends against using parentheses when possible, which works against option #3: "Primera División (Mexico)" and "2008–09 Primera División season (Mexico)". Option 1 requires adding additional non-English words to disambiguate the title, which clearly would not follow the aforementioned "Use English words" rule. This is why I believe that option #2 is our best option. It most closely follows proper naming conventions: it includes both the common name and an English-language, disambiguating word that is not in parentheses. I'd just like to say that I was undecided on my naming preference until I started looking for naming convention policies. Within option #2, however, there are multiple options: Mexican Primera División or Primera División of Mexico. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 16:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't like that last option ("of Mexico"). Saying something like that in Spanish might sound ok ("de México"), but it sounds a bit off in English. I would prefer "Mexican Primera División" instead, if that were the case (although I'm not completely sold on using two languages to name the leagues). Digirami (talk) 17:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Primera División has no official English equivalent. FIFA recognizes the leagues as Primera División (Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, El Salvador, Costa Rica). I support Johnny Polo. --MicroX (talk) 18:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Consensus or no consensus?--MicroX (talk) 01:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Give it an extra week to get more opinions. If nothing more is added, then we should move on. Digirami (talk) 19:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Giving it some more thought, I don't think that La Liga needs to be moved to Spanish Primera Division because the current article name is widely known while the leagues of South America are not. If we do make article name changes, I think La Liga should be left alone. --MicroX (talk) 19:02, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. La Liga should be moved to a title that includes the phrase "Primera Division", since "La Liga" refers to the Liga de Futbol Profesional, which covers both the Primera and Segunda divisions. – PeeJay 02:58, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with PeeJay. Remember that the official name of the top-tier of Spanish football is "Primera Division de la Liga Nacional de Futbol Profesional". "La Liga" came from the commercial name ("La Liga BBVA"). Digirami (talk) 09:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

If we reach consensus, I'm assuming that we will migrate the season articles to the 2009 League Name format right? --MicroX (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we have a consensus. If there was any opposition, it would/should have been voiced by now.

Your assumption is correct. In addition, if the league is multi-tournament/stage, add "season" to the title (unless it's not necessary [Peru and Ecuador are the two notables because of Torneo and Campaonato in the title], or if it is Brazil). Digirami (talk) 07:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to discuss on that too. Before we start the mass migration of the South American articles, I had already migrated the 1966-2009 Primera División Peruana articles to Campeonato Descentralizado XXXX because that is what the ADFP (Peruvian organizers) calls it. However, it is still the Primera División of Peru. My proof: Due to some threats directed to the FPF by the "Agremiación" of soccer players of Peru, a new division will be created called the División Premier starting in 2011. The top division will now be the XXXX División Premier and the original Primera División will become level 2 of the Peruvian football league system and the current Segunda División of Peru will cease to exist. This little incident suggests that the current top division of Peru is and always was the Primera División. So when we carry out this mass migration, the Peruvian season articles should be moved to XXXX Peruvian Primera División or XXXX Primera División of Peru or XXXX Primera División (Peru), which ever we finally agree on. Descentralizado was simply a way to denote that the top division is played nationally. In addition, the División Premier will still be referred to as Descentralizado because it involves teams from all over the country. --MicroX (talk) 08:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Or, you keep the individual seasons under "Torneo Decentralizado" since that is the name of the competition (and in the intro, indicated the "#### Torneo Descentralizado was the #th season of the Primera Division"), but change the name of the league article when the time comes. It's in a sense what Ive been doing with Ecuador (while it is the Serie A, the competition is has a pretty standard non-commercial name).

In addition, when the Peruvian Primera Division becomes the second-tier, add a disambiguation to distinguish the Primera Division when it was the top of the pyramid ("(2nd level)" may work). Digirami (talk) 01:25, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

The 2nd level thing is a great idea. The Torneo Descentralizado I'm not sure because it was called Campeonato Descentralizado since 1966 and along the way (around 2000s), they just called it Torneo Descentralizado. I'm not exactly sure when the Campeonato/Torneo change came along but the 2007, 2008 and 2009 regulations call it Torneo Descentralizado. Also, I was just thinking of calling all the articles Primera Division (between 1926-2010) and in the first sentence of each article put its respective tournament name. Like I've said before, Descentralizado would be in the leads of the 1966-2010 articles and I also found out that the tournaments/leagues in the 1940s were called Campeonato de Selección y Competencia though I can't confirm if the ones prior to the 40s or after were called this. There aren't many Peruvian sources. The only way to confirm would be to check newspapers, which I'll try to when I have the chance. --MicroX (talk) 04:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Come to think about it, I think years is a better disambiguation after remembering about the Canadian Soccer League.

I'm having similar problems with Ecuador's league. While initially a championship you had to qualify for by winning regional championships (hence the name "Campeonato Ecuatoriano de Futbol" ), in 1967 it become a proper league. But I can't confirm or deny a name change to distinguish it from the Segunda Categoria (which was created that year) because of a lack of sources. That top league was split into the Serie A and the Serie B in 1972. But the name "Campeonato Ecuatoriano de Futbol" seems to have stuck around ever since. In addition, FEF doesn't release the regulations for its current season (or any at all). So I've named all season from 1957 to 1966 "Campeonato Ecuatoriano de Futbol" (without a doubt). Everything after is "Campeonato Ecuatoriano de Futbol Serie A" (although I'm not 100% on the 1967 through 1971 seasons). Digirami (talk) 07:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems that King of the North East, JohnnyPolo24, PeeJay and myself support the Mexican Primera División naming. Digirami leans towards the use of brackets. Anyone else like to add to the discussion or have new ideas? --MicroX (talk) 07:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I can't remember saying that I preferred that style in this particular discussion. Nevertheless, it is my preferred option. – PeeJay 09:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The best choice is probably to use the style of Premier League, and though I'm Eurocentric, I also think the Spanish league should be at the main titles "Primera División", "2009-10 Primera División" like Segunda División etc. (there should probably be a Segunda División (disambiguation) to list all others). Perhaps even redirect La Liga towards Liga de Fútbol Profesional as this seems to be the usage in Spain see: es:Liga de Fútbol Profesional (España) chandler 09:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I will support the Mexican Primera Division naming format (especially after seeing the similar convention for the Premier Leagues). But, I would make a fuss if the main Primera Division page was the Spanish league. I would prefer if the main Primera Division be the disambiguation page. Argentina has been using the Primera Division name for at least the same amount of time as Spain (maybe longer), so why should they have to have "Argentine" added to their title, but not Spain? Because Spain is in Europe? Seems like a lame reason. Or is it because the Spanish league is the more popular one? Perhaps, but "Primera Division" is probably used equally, or maybe more often, to identify either the Mexican league or the Argentine league than their Spanish equivalent (especially externally). Digirami (talk) 10:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

We could call Argentina's first division Primera División A (no need for Argentine anymore), considering that is what FIFA kind of calls it. --MicroX (talk) 03:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

One look at the regulations, and it's common name, and it is just and Argentina's league is the "Primera Division". FIFA isn't always 100% right. For example: they call Ecuador's league the Primera A, which isn't wrong, but it is more often called the Serie A. Digirami (talk) 06:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there a possibility that it says "Primera A" because of Apertura? chandler 07:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I think they put that because the lower levels are Primera B Nacional, Primera B Metropolitana, Primera C Metropolitana, and Primera D Metropolitana, as well as others with a letter attached to their name. So FIFA, in all their wisdom, probably thought that since the lower levels have a letter attached, the top level does too. But, that is not the case. Digirami (talk) 08:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Finally found this discussion. The agreed format "<season> <demonym> <league name>" is good to go. I would also support the renaming of the Spanish "<season> La Liga" articles to "<season> Spanish Primera División" because of the arguments mentioned above. By the way (just out of curiosity), how about those leagues with a Apertura/Clausura format? Has there been some consensus about how to pack those together so that we have articles covering a full year? If not, I would suggest to open a sub-discussion in this thread and sort it out before eventually renaming the articles. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

In South America, every league except Brazil uses a multi-stage/tournament season. Of those nine, 7 use the Apertura/Clausura system in some form. But every league in South America has one article per season/year, regardless of format or the number of championships in a season (although previous Colombian tournaments are seperate, the current is in one now; retro-editing is necessary). That has not been the case in Central America, where every league (except Belize) uses the Apertura/Clausura system, and each tournament has their own season. I would like to combine them, starting with Mexico, but I have this strange feeling that if I do, the editors of Mexico's league will make a fuss. Each Mexican tournament has three articles as it is. That's six articles per season! Way too much in my opinion. Digirami (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(Reindent) I have gone ahead and requested the moves on the La Liga's talk page (just in case). Go ahead and vote so it can be processed quickly. Thank you. Digirami (talk) 13:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I still don't get why the Spanish league shouldn't be on the main "Primera División", Segunda División, Segunda División B and Tercera División are already on the main articles, why not move it all in line chandler 13:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Simply put, the Spanish one doesn't hold a clear dominant use of the name "Primera División" (unlike Premier League and to a lesser extent Serie A). Digirami (talk) 13:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with that. I think it holds it in English. chandler 13:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the Argentine league or the Mexican league have a better hold on the name. Besides, as you said, you're being Eurocentric on this issue. That's not right, especially since it can refer to any one league on the list. That's why they should all get a demonym. Digirami (talk) 13:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, Segunda Division can refer to other leagues around the world, like in Peru, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Honduras (pre-name change). I think we should change those too. Digirami (talk) 13:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems that La Liga will not be moved to Spanish Primera División. However, we still have to decide on the Primera Divisiones of Latin America. --MicroX (talk) 02:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The move should affect all of the Latin American Primera Divisiones, and move them to a similar format. Digirami (talk) 04:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that this conversation has been dead for a week, but none of the articles at Primera división were moved. What's the deal? Also, don't give up on the Mexico & Central American article mergers. This has to be solved. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

We're having trouble with the La Liga article. User:Knepflerle opposes La Liga being renamed and because we were hoping to move all Primera Division articles to consistent names, the moves are on hold. --MicroX (talk) 02:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Jay Emmanuel-Thomas

Emmanuel-Thomas's page says that he scored on his debut for Blackpool but on Soccernet it says the Blackpool scorers were Alex Baptiste and Gary Taylor-Fletcher and so does the Blackpool website. So if that's the case, then Emmanuel-Thomas is still due. Did he score or did he not score on this debut? – Michael (talk) 02:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The BBC and Sky Sports both agree that Baptiste and Taylor-Fletcher were the scorers, but the Blackpool Gazette says that the scorers were Emmanuel-Thomas and Taylor-Fletcher scored. Nevertheless, I'd be tempted to agree with the BBC, Sky Sports and Soccernet, as they are far more reliable than a local paper. – PeeJay 11:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The BBC and Sky Sports will agree, they're both given the information by the Press Association - they just write what they're told to. -- BigDom 12:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Blackpool's official website also cite Emmanuel-Thomas as the goalscorer. I would agree with the local sources that it was him who scored, the Press Association do make the odd slip-up. --Jimbo^[online] 15:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Why not ask Tangerines (talk · contribs), he's a Blackpool fan and he could even have been at the game in question! GiantSnowman 15:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Watford's official site says that it was Baptiste. Seems strange that Blackpool would wrongly credit one of their own scorers though. WFCforLife (talk) 22:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: Definitely Baptiste, Jay's profile on Blackpool's site says that Emmanuel-Thomas hasn't scored for them. WFCforLife (talk) 22:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The official match report (which had earlier said Thomas) now says Baptiste and Taylor-Fletcher. Bettia (talk) 10:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The club doesn't add the stats in his profile, all these official sites are linked with the Sky Sports database. Local sources are in my opinion the most likely to be accurate. They write their own reports based on their own observation. But that doesn't mean the goal will be credited to Emmanuel-Thomas in future publications (like Sky sports football yearbook) I can remember matches played in the Netherlands when all sources got the wrong goalscorer, there is nothing you can do about it, correct but unsourced data will never be accepted Cattivi (talk) 00:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Historically I agree, but nowadays given that every single goal is televised, commentated on and re-played on at least two different broadcasters, you would expect that the television companies will be correct. I'd also note that while you're right about the Sky Sports database, the very fact that Blackpool uses it weakens their match article's contradiction. The irony is that I went to this game, I watched the BBC highlights, I've added the actual match article to wikipedia on Watford's season page, yet I was blissfully unaware of the whole controversy! WFCforLife (talk) 00:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Using a database as a source is always a bit risky, they all make some mistakes...In cases like this I wait to see what the yearbooks and clubhistories write about it.Cattivi (talk) 01:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The premiumtv websites are owned by the Press Association/Perform Group/FL Interactive, they update the stats on the player profiles. Hence it being wrong on there too. The clubs control the news items/match reports. I think if anything the big companies such as Sky and BBC are more likely to get it wrong, as they process so many fixtures, where as the people who see the side every week should have a lot clearer idea of their home sides players. --Jimbo^[online] 01:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The wording I've put into the article is far too strong (implying that the Press Association are definitely right and that he definitely didn't score). I've left it because I can't think of an appropriate way of putting it, but feel free to alter it. However I do think that as all the statistics tables I've seen do not credit him with having scored for Blackpool, his statistics here should reflect this. It may well be worth doing a footnote from the table, to make it absolutely clear that there is dispute over the goal tally. WFCforLife (talk) 09:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If it was simply a matter of mistaken identity by whoever made the initial report, then journalistic error is not a significant element in this player's career, and there seems no reason to make any reference to the goal. If it was a matter of debate as to who got the final significant touch, then some description of his claim to the goal might be worthwhile. I can't find a copy of it on YouTube, but there must be someone in the project who has paid their £35 to have access to premiumtv (but not me) to see the goal. Kevin McE (talk) 09:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Completely agree, but until we know otherwise it's best to assume that there is doubt, as we have conflicting reliable sources. For what its worth I was at the game (albeit 100 yards away) and it was a bit of a scramble, but as a Watford fan I wasn't too interested as to who the scorer was. WFCforLife (talk) 10:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

So...that would mean Emmanuel-Thomas is still due. – Michael (talk) 18:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Due what? Kevin McE (talk) 18:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Due to give birth? GiantSnowman 18:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Due for a goal. GiantSnowman, what made you ask the "Due to give birth" question?. – Michael (talk) 22:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Nah, pretty sure he's not given birth yet. Bizzarely with the goal, from what I recall now, it was clearly JET who scored yet Alex John-Baptiste has ended up somehow being the one credited with that goal. Blackpool do like double-barrelled player names though, with Gary Taylor-Fletcher definitely scoring the other goal. With regard to the official match report, that is still contradictory as it has AJB and GTF listed as the scorers, but in the actual report says that "the Seasiders won a corner on the right, Neal Eardley floated a great ball towards JAY-EMMANUEL-THOMAS who headed home" - no mention of AJB at all. And as I recall it was 100% JET who headed the ball. The BFC official site isn't exactly infallible though, as they have his height as 1.75m when he "tower"s above virtually everyone else.--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 21:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

OK I just re-checked again. The Blackpool website for some odd reason has JET's profile without a goal, yet the official match programme from the next home game after the draw at Watford has the goal credited to JET and this quote from him: "I didn't hear it announced over the tannoy as Alex Batiste scoring so I didn't really know about it. He did try to nick it off me in the changing room after, but he was only joking - he knows it was definitely my goal. It is very nice to score and I enjoyed the moment. It was my first start and my first goal so obviously things are looking bright for me."--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Just an update on this. Given that JET scored again today, I have emailed the BFC club secretary (who oversees just about everything "behind the scenes") to get this clarified as all "non-internet" BFC sources credit the goal to JET, yet the official BFC website is contradictory with both players credited on different pages.--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 18:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Got a reply from Blackpool F.C. today as follows; "If you look closely at our official site, the report from the Watford game details Jay scored not Bap http://www.blackpoolfc.co.uk/page/MatchReport/0,,10432~47327,00.html The stats for soccerbase and our site are provided by PA and for some reason they still haven't changed it!" So, it was JET's goal and sites like Soccerbase are incorrect.--♦Tangerines♦·Talk 17:10, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that it is the ref's report, subject to amendment by a disputed goals panel, that is the authoritative word on who scored a goal. So are we confident that the club's site is in agreement with that? Where do the definitive details get published? FL website? Kevin McE (talk) 21:48, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Celtic F.C. founded 1887 or 1888

I would appreciate some opinions on this. It is on record that Celtic were first constituted on November 1887 yet it is generally said they were founded in 1888, as shown on the club badge. They played their first game in 1888 and the centenary year was in 1988. An editor has changed the founding year in the infobox to 1887 and I would rather have some advice on this before changing anything. Thanks. Jack forbes (talk) 01:43, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The official website says 1887, so I'd stick with that. Bettia (talk) 14:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

you should prob go with 1888 and put a footnote in to say that this was the official founding date but the org of celtic fc had been together since 1887. As all club tops / info say 1888(Monkeymanman (talk) 14:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC))

The club was founded on 6-11-1887 according to Hamlyn's Illustrated history of Celtic. The reason for the 6 month gap is that they wanted to build their own ground first. From it's conception the club was intended to be more than just another football club. The pride of the Irish-Catholic community was at stake. The first match on the new ground didn't involve Celtic. It was a Cowlairs vs. Hibernian match (8-5-1888) Cattivi (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Not that i care much, but why the hell does it say 1888 on the badge then?(Monkeymanman (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC))

Maybe because they didn't have any footballing members before 1888 Cattivi (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

They also spent some time luring away players from clubs like HibernianCattivi (talk) 15:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If all club affairs say 1888 is that not enough for some people(Monkeymanman (talk) 18:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC))

Not sure what you mean by "all club affairs" - the club website says 1887. --hippo43 (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

the club existed in 1887 but wasn't founded till 1888 in the footballing world a team counts it founding years as the year in which it played their first game! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.11.182 (talk) 22:08, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Fairs Cup: please help

Please help me in page about International club competition records. Wikipedia must be linked to official sources, and not to original researches. As proven here, Fairs Cup was an official competition recognized by FIFA [9]. In that wiki page, FIFA website is used as source for honours of Boca, Sao Paulo, Penarol, Santos and Juventus (see Footnotes and references): the deletion of the same source for Barça, is a clear form of arbitrary act which fights against wiki pillars. Thanks for your help.--79.45.156.183 (talk) 12:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA have NEVER organizated regional or continental competitions. Also, THE ONLY club competition organizated by FIFA in football history has been the FIFA Club World Cup. For continental competitions EXISTS 6 Confederations (UEFA, CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, OFC, AFC & CAF) Be serious please.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 21:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The IP didn't say it was "organizated", or even organised, by FIFA - he said "recognised". It would also be better if you didn't accuse him of not being serious. Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

IP says: "FIFA can organize European competitions because it headquarters are in Europe". It's False! Here are all FIFA competitions and only 1 have been "recognized" without be a FIFA competition: King Fahd Cup (as "intercontinental cup") and only one have been for clubs (FIFA Club World Cup). All FIFA competitions in history (12) are in World-wide level (FIFA World Cup) or in Intercontinental level (Confederations Cup). How FIFA can "recognize" one Continental competition that is not recognized by UEFA, the Europe's confederation?

Read that:

UEFA Cup: All-time finals - UEFA.com

Fairs Cup:

"The UEFA Cup replaced the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in the 1971/72 season. The list of finals from that competition are listed below, but please note that the Fairs Cup is not considered a UEFA competition, and hence clubs' records in the Fairs Cup are not considered part of their European record. [...]
NOTE: The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup also took place from 1955 to 1971 but not as an official UEFA competition."

Legend: All-time statistics - UEFA.com

"UEFA club competitions: These are the official statistics considered valid for communicating official records in UEFA club competitions defined as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup (from the 1973 competition), the UEFA Intertoto Cup and the European/South American Cup. Matches in the Inter-Cities’ Fairs Cup and the 1972 Super Cup are included only for information purposes as these competitions were not held under UEFA auspices."

Fairs Cup is not official competition.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 22:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, UEFA disagrees with you: [10] ("Ambos equipos sólo se habían enfrentado en una ocasión en partido oficial. Fue en la primera ronda de la Copa de Ferias, cuando el Atlético venció por 2-1 en casa y empató a cero en Portugal." If Spanish language is a problem, English version can be easily found). Then, Fairs Cup was an official competition even if, we know, it was not organized by UEFA, but by a committee involving FIFA: it was the same situation of later Toyota Cup, which was organized by a committee involving UEFA (in fact, we speak of UEFA Champions League/UEFA ECCC, UEFA Super Cup, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, but Toyota Cup had no prefix).
FIFA recognizes Fairs Cup in its webpages as an official honour too [11] (and you can't remove this source from our wikipage, because you used the same source for many other clubs, as Boca and Sao Paulo). And last but not least, photographs ensure us that Fairs Cup was given by Sir Stanley Rous, President of FIFA: AS Roma 1961, Barça 1966, Leeds 1968.
So, please, stop your original researches: have you got an official source which EXPLICITLY (with exact words, not with your personal interpretations) says that Fairs Cup was a friendly tournament? --95.236.155.228 (talk) 10:58, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

IP, When I said that was not "official" tournament? It's as formal as Mitropa Cup and Latin Cup, but I said that Fairs Cup is not recognized by UEFA and it is clearly specified by the institution and it's official documents. FIFA has not organize Continental cups because for that exists the six Confederations just as the Confederations has not organize national cups because exists more of 200 national Associations. This is the football's order and that order must be respected in accordance with the FIFA's statutes, the Confederations' statutes and the associations' statutes.

Blogs as "Europa en juego" are not accepted in Wikipedia.

"Classic football" section is not relevant because it does not represent the official position of FIFA:

"The list of clubs or the opinions expressed in the articles do not necessarily represent the views of FIFA, unless expressly stated otherwise. If your favourite club is not yet listed, please be patient as FIFA.com will be publishing more profiles in the coming weeks."

(see the note, indicated below the world's map).

Blatter has not given the World Cup Trophy to Cannavaro (Italy's captain) on 2006, so what? Italy is anyway the current world champion. Rous give the Fairs Cup trophy as chairman of the tournament's organizing committee since 1958, never as FIFA's president. --Dantetheperuvian (talk) 20:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, you did not give any evidence for your statements. I remember you that your original researches are not allowed in wikipedia, and you can't joke with us giving and removing authority to sources according to your pleasure only (YOU use classic football section for Boca or Juventus, YOU claim not to use it for Barça??? Are you the king of FIFA?). And please, we are speaking of a President giving the Cup, not the opposite, so your example is clearly invalid.
Please, come back only when you will find an official source clearly saying that Fairs Cup was unofficial or friendly or not recognized by FIFA. If you have not this evidence, please not make us waiste time.--79.54.145.112 (talk) 21:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Sir, In the Milan profile on FIFA Classic Clubs is no trace of 5 Italian Super Cups => (according you) FIFA "not recognize" the Italian Super Cups??? Come on! If UEFA (uefadirect 08/02 page.15) recognize that Milan record This can not be a "original research". I can not say the same about the "FIFA Fairs Cup" (sic.) story...--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 23:00, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not allow your original researches. We are speaking of international competitions, you are not allowed to speak of national competitions and to translate these examples in DIFFERENT international competitions (because this is an ORIGINAL RESEARCH).
Evidently, you do not understand, so I must repeat: please, come back only when you will find an official source clearly saying that Fairs Cup was unofficial or friendly or not recognized by FIFA. If you have not this evidence, please not make us waiste time. Why, if your reasons would be so clear, you are unable to find a simple, short OFFICIAL source which EXPLICITLY confirms your (personal) ideas? --79.24.128.212 (talk) 12:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

UEFA makes it clear : Fairs Cup are not considered part of their European record.--KSA^connect 17:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Kosovo

Not sure this has been raised before: several current squad sections use the flag of Kosovo for players. See for instance Kushtrim Lushtaku at TSV 1860 München and Kristian Nushi at FC St. Gallen. I have my doubts about this. The football association of Kosovo hasn't been recognized by any football confederation, which means that there is no official national football team for which these players may qualify. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 23:44, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The flags should be of those country within FIFA they're allowed to play in (when the article handles a team which is within FIFA regulation) imo. So it will be Albania or Serbia (or a number of countries with high Kosovo refuge numbers) I guess. chandler 23:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA isn't mentioned in the guideline is it? If I recall it is "sporting nationality". The countries that are not recognized still play. It looks like they recently participated in KTFF 50th Anniversary Cup with a couple of other unrecognized teams. I also doubt someone in the disputed region would be chosen to play for the Serbian team. I'm not seeing anything about Kosovo on the Serbain national team page or its players from a quick glance but I do not know how well those are maintained. This might be a perfect example of when to not include the icon at all since it is only partially recognized as an sovereign state (International recognition of Kosovo).Cptnono (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Well their sporting nationality as it means to FIFA football will exist, most will probably have Albania as sporting nationality, right now I would liken it to the situation where someone like Victor Valdes, never caped at senior level for Spain, but for Catalonia, we don't have a Catalonia flag next to his name because the country doesn't exist when relating to FIFA chandler 00:47, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

According to the guidelines that might be incorrect and should be fixred. The FIFA mention at MOS:ICON is "Use the flag and name of the country (be it a state or a nation) that the person (or team of people) officially represented, regardless of citizenship, when the flag templates are used for sports statistics and the like. If a French player is awarded a medal for playing in a German team, the German flag would be used in a table of awards. The Scottish flag would be used with regard to the FIFA World Cup, but that of the UK for the Olympics. Caution should be used in extending this convention to non-sporting contexts, as it may produce confusing results. And a countervailing example would be an article about a sports team that officially represents a particular country but is composed of members who are citizens of several countries; a table of players at such an article might list them by their country of actual citizenship or professed nationality." I would also check out #Use of flags for non-sovereign states and nations and #Use of flags for non-sovereign states and nations on that page. I don't know enough about Valdes but these Kosovo player may be different or they may not be. Cptnono (talk) 04:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that Kosovo was not recognised neither by FIFA nor by UEFA, and beside some 50 countries, the rest still consideres Kosovo as still part of Serbia. Those players should do as they did for some time: chouse between Serbia, Albania and , in the case of imigrants, the nation where they live. There are many that opted for using the Albanian (even if having and travelling with Serbian passport) and others have used Serbian , but those are impopular for not following the policy of hateriot towards Serbia, that is dictated from it´s own Kosovo (ex-UCK terrorists) governament and from Washington. The problem is that many Kosovar Albanians, since the independence, feel like using their own flag, that in case of recognition from FIFA and UEFA would be ideal. Even as a Serb, I would like to see this issue resolved.

About the issues regarding the first Cptnono coments, I don´t understand them. Should be something written about it in the Serbia NT page? Why? What would you like to see written there? Do you see anything written about Groenland in the Danish national team page? In the Spanish, anything about Catalonia? No? And about the players, what players from the current Kosovo team you see playing alongside Stanković, Krasić, Vidić, Ivanović...? There is one Miralem Sulejmani, he´s from Kosovo, and plays happyly in Serbian nat team. There was Igor Duljaj... If they were more open-minded, maybe more would play. FkpCascais (talk) 05:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

And about the Serbian national team page, I can assure you it´s perfectly daylly manteined by a dozen of good editors, so I don´t really see what User:Cptnono expected to see there. FkpCascais (talk) 05:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, it was a quick glance. 2 isn't very many so I don't feel that bad. If they are eligible o play it makes a big difference and I assumed they were not. Screw the other team argument though. The guidelines say not to use a flag at all for this reason. If Kosovo player x is not open minded than there is a debated reason for the flag and therefore it shouldn't be used. FIFA (you can play for Northern Cyprus in not FIFA tournaments) are also overridden by reality in some cases but that shows how contentious some of the flag issues are. That is why the guideline is there. I don't know how this effects the players that are simply not good enough to be called up, though. Cptnono (talk) 06:10, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Do we want to try a case by case basis on some of these Kosovo examples since "sporting nationality" might be hard to set a blanket standard for? I would also recommend editors stop relying on other articles to make judgements especially if they are not assessed high (someone might want to check out Valdés) or are against policy. And just for fun, I actually like Serbia so I hope I didn't come across like a jerkoff for saying I didn't know how well the related articles are watched.Cptnono (talk) 06:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The convention seems pretty clear cut from the quotations above. If he hasn't represented Kosovo, his nationality should be given as his most widely recognised citizenship, but if he has represented Kosovo and Kosovo alone, his sporting nationality is Kosovan. WFCforLife (talk) 07:30, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Don´t warry, I was a bit hard on you couse I couldn´t understand the point around the Serbia nt. About the Kosovar players playing as Kosovars, even I am divided. The problem with Kosovars (Kosovar Albanians, couse Serbs from Kosovo call themselfs allways as Serbs) is that they don´t want to participate, or better said, boycot, everything that is Serbian, and this goes on since the 80´s when "somebody" told them that this is the best way to gain power (They already had power as they had Autonomy, but they wanted more). There is nothing wrong with Kosovars in Serbia, near my house in Belgrade (Serbia capital) there is a sqare where many Kosovars get together... During all this period, since old-yugoslavia they had everything, University in Albanian language, TV and radio in Albanian, Autonomy in Kosovo, Hospitals,... everything, the same as we did. And they never payed a cent nether as taxes or whatever... They didn´t even needed to speak Serbian, despite living and having passport and Serbian social care. Betweem Kosovars, there used to be two oposite policies: one, a more intelectual and progressive, that wanted to continue working and living with Serbs, achnoledging that Serbia did invest there, and another "mountainous" thinking that boicoting, attacking Serb civilians, killing them, making them fear for life and escape, then attacking and ambushing police and military, would lead them to a conflict that (with all propaganda and U.S.A., at time, help) will give them a reason to victimise in front of the world, saying that all bad came from Serbs, and that the only solution was INDEPENDENCE, and nothing else. Since this second group won, if an Kosovar player wanted to play for Serbia, I can assure you that he would inmidiatelly be called a "pussy" by his own Kosovars, and he coudn´t go there, or even could he or somebody from his family get killed. Really! This did happend to many Kosovars that continued working with Serbs, or refused their boycot. Those Kosovars (the "normal" ones) are more hated by the radical Kosovars that even the Serbs. So, for a Kosovar to play in Serbia nat.team, it is impossible, not because of Serbs, but because of his own Albanians.

The problem is that even I started to use a Category:Kosovar footballers or ad atheir flag, couse I don´t know how to categorize them... I even made a big edit in their main club KF Prishtina throu all history known as FK Priština, where I added and organised a lot of Kosovar players even yesterday.

There is a coment that states that the USA helped Kosovo because they gathered 2 billion dolars to distribute to lobbies in the States so they win the independence. I´m thinking, maybe they should have give it to Serbia, and "by" Serbian land. Even that would be more legal, than this non-United Nations decision. Regards. FkpCascais (talk) 07:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

But, WFC, "if he represented Kosovo", Kosovo plays only tournaments and frielndlies because they are not recognised. So if a player playes for Gozo, he should have Gozo flag intead of Malta? FkpCascais (talk) 08:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

If he has represented Gozo and not Malta, yes. I'd say a similar thing about Catalonia. WFCforLife (talk) 13:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

On the other way, using Kosovar flag is practical for separating them from Albanian Albanians or Serbia. FkpCascais (talk) 08:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I always thought that the main reason for using the flags, was to show for which national team a player could qualify in international tournaments. We use the Dutch flag for players who are eligible for the Dutch national team, the Greek flag for players who are eligible for the Greek national team, etcetera. We use the English flag for players from England, because they may represent England, and not the Union Jack, even though they are British citizens. The Kosovo Football Federation and the Kosovo national team are not recognized by UEFA and FIFA, which means that Kosovo as it stands cannot qualify for international tournaments. This means that it's not an official national team. We don't display unrecognized football nationalities like Gibraltar, so why should we make an exception for Kosovo? 94.212.31.237 (talk) 13:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

A further point to keep in mind: as long as UEFA and FIFA do not recognize the Football Federation of Kosovo, football in Kosovo will continue to be governed by the Football Association of Serbia. As such, players from Kosovo qualify as Serbian footballers unless and until the Football Federation of Kosovo receives official recognition. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 13:09, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that last point IP, in the sense that Serbian nationality superceeds Kosovo by default. But in the specific case that a player has played for Kosovo only, or has publicly declared himself to only be available for Kosovo from independence, I'd regard him as Kosovan in a football sense. I know this is a bad analogy, but English-born players of Jamaican descent are generally considered English unless and until they declare themselves for the Jamaican national team. While the situation couldn't be more different, I think a similar principle is applicable here. WFCforLife (talk) 13:28, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

But the important difference is that Jamaica is a FIFA member. If we look at a more similar example Sápmi football team, there are some players who have articles there. If you go to their clubs they all display them as Norwegian or Swedish (or Finnish etc) Example of players Tom Høgli for Tromsø IL, Espen Minde in Tromsdalen UIL and Steffen Nystrøm in Strømsgodset IF chandler 13:51, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Same with players who 'represent' the Basque or Catalan national teams; they are 100% Spanish! GiantSnowman 16:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Then those examples are wrong as well. "Use the flag and name of the country (be it a state or a nation) that the person (or team of people) officially represented, regardless of citizenship, when the flag templates are used for sports statistics and the like" is in no way, shape or form ambiguous, and personally I fully agree with it. WFCforLife (talk) 17:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for proving my point. As long as Kosovo is not recognized by UEFA and FIFA, it is not an official national team. And if it's not an official team, Kosovar footballers can't "officially represent" Kosovo, so the Kosovar flag shouldn't be used. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 17:27, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA is important but I think it would be a shame to let it determine a player's sporting nationality. There is Non-FIFA football out there. Correct me if I am wrong, but the de facto independence of Kosovo leaves it not integrated within Serbia. The division seems much greater than say Catalonia. If the players that have the skill are not going to cross over then it is not factual for us to slap the label on them. Remember "Beware of political pitfalls, and listen to concerns raised by other editors. Some flags are (sometimes or always) political statements and can associate a person with their political significance, sometimes misleadingly. In other cases, a flag may have limited and highly specific official uses, and an application outside that context can have political (e.g. nationalist or anti-nationalist) implications." - WP:ICON.

On a side note, I assumed earlier that they were not "eligible" since I doubted guys from the Serbian FA would be keeping an eye on that side (eligible was probably the incorrect term). You mentioned there were a couple who have played for Serbia so a summary of the way it works might be interesting info in the general Football in Kosovo or Football in Serbia articles. The politics is interesting but I think everyone here would agree that its effect on sport is noteworthy.Cptnono (talk) 17:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, FIFA is the only organisation that can "determine a player's sporting nationality", because it governs world football and international football competitions. As I said before, if FIFA and UEFA do not recognize Kosovo, it is not an official national team and it is not an official sporting nationality. If we were to go by citizenship, all players from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would be listed with the same flag (of the UK), but they're not, because they are eligible to different national football teams within UEFA and FIFA. As it stands, football in Kosovo is still governed by the Football Association of Serbia. This means that these players are only eligible to the Serbian national team. Whether they are called up is another matter, obviously. As far as sporting nationality is concerned, Kosovo is on the same level as Catalonia (Spain), Greenland (Denmark) and Sápmi (Sweden, Norway, Finland), i.e. not official. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 17:52, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that it is FIFA's call. If the player is playing for Kosovo in nonFIFA competition and not Serbia in FIFA competition then in it is clear what his sporting nationality is. Just because FIFA does not santion tournaments doesn't mean they aren't playing ball for what some consider a nation. Also, Kosovo is more separated from Serbia than Catalonia is from Spain, correct? The variables in both situations seem too unique to compare completely.18:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Read the rules again. If Kosovo is not recognized by any confederation, it is not an official team. And if it's not an official team, these players can't possibly "officially represent" Kosovo. For UEFA and FIFA, so for international football, they are governed by the Football Association of Serbia, and therefore count as Serbian footballers. Their refusal to play for the national team of Serbia is meaningless. It is on the same scale as Ruud van Nistelrooy: just because he's announced that he's not available for the Dutch team anymore doesn't mean he's not a Dutch footballer. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 18:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Fifa is the highest worldwide recognized authority on football, and TSV 1860 München is under Fifa jurisdiction. And just as the IAAF would for athletics of IOC for Olympics, if a Kosovo born 100m sprinter wanted to compete in the Golden League (or Diamond League now) he would not be able to represent Kosovo, and his sporting nationality would not be Kosovo. Just as you currently can't represent Kosovo in "Fifa football", which the articles in question are. chandler 18:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Regardless of the nationality debate, the articles are not about Fifa football, they are about football clubs. The flags are there to represent sporting nationality first and foremost. If football teams which have never been affiliated with FIFA are non-notable, they should be deleted without exception. Consensus seems to be that well sourced (and even extremely poorly sourced...) NF-teams are notable, and if that's the case, FIFA membership is irrelevant. WFCforLife (talk) 19:03, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The clubs in question (TSV 1860 München and FC St. Gallen) are part of fifa controlled football. chandler 19:09, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA have nothing to do with club football, save for that competition that Manchester United went on a mid-season holiday for last year. Regardless, the fact that FIFA don't recognise the NF-board is irrelevant. Wikipedia does. WFCforLife (talk) 19:17, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA > UEFA > German FA > TSV 1860 München. That's how they're under FIFA jurisdiction and FIFA does have things to do with club football [12] chandler 19:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, your argument if irrelevant, WFC. Even if the clubs are not under FIFA jurisdiction (which they are), the national teams are. Kosovo is not recognized by UEFA and FIFA. This means that the national team is not official. And that means that the players can't possibly officially represent Kosovo. Kosovo is not a football nationality, because Kosovo hasn't been recognized as a football nation. And in that regard, Kosovo is exactly the same as Catalonia. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 19:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in a football sense Kosovo is exactly the same as Catalonia. I'm saying that we're doing it wrong with Catalonia as well. And the Sapmi team. As an aside, if I am wrong, why are Manchester United F.C. (Gibraltar)'s players all marked as Gibraltan? Surely they should be marked as British or Spanish?

Anyway, The fact that FIFA has a dispute resolution committee is neither here nor there. UEFA have the final juristiction over the running of European club football. FIFA runs global competitions, and with varying degrees of success attempts to change the running of the global game. Using your logic, we should take our lead from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), as they have the power to overturn FIFA's decision on Chelsea, and are therefore higher up the food chain. Taking your argument to a more general level, your thought process suggests that we should take the word of whoever is in charge as the definitive source of information. So should we take a government's statement about its own country as fact, not put anything on wikipedia which contradicts it? WFCforLife (talk) 19:53, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you seriously implying that FIFA aren't the governing body for football worldwide? You currently can't be a Kosovar (as nationality) when competing in football that's under FIFA jurisdiction, which UEFA is, which the German FA is. chandler 20:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The subject's are individuals and not clubs so the position that FIFA or UEFA makes clubs makes no sense to me. FIFA is not what makes a sporting nationality or team "official". It can make teams sanctioned by the prevailing international body but to disregard the physical existence of team's not affiliated with the organization is silly. Kosovo has a football team and Kosovo has a greater level of "independence" than many other disputed states.

For Kushtrim Lushtaku, it could be argued that he should have Germany (passport), Kosovo (if he is from Kosovo which it looks like), and Serbia (Kosovo's independence is de facto in nature). Since he has not been capped I say remove the flag. If he has said "I will play for xxx if they will have me" or "I will not play for xxx" then it will change the dynamic.

Kristian Nushi has been capped by Kosovo. They can do that now.

The guidelines are clear, if there is such a dispute no flag is to be used. I think that there should not be a dispute for Nushi since FIFA is not the judge of reality but if it is disputed that is just the way it is.Cptnono (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not implying that FIFA are not a higher body than UEFA, I am saying that they do not run European football. It's an irrelevant conversation anyway, as UEFA's position is the same as FIFA. My point was that FIFA do not ban players from representing NF teams, nor do they prohibit clubs from playing against unrecognised teams. They therefore do not explicitly state that NF-Board matches are illegal, nor would it carry any weight if they did.

I agree with Cptnono to an extent. I would normally consider a player's nationality as his United-Nations recognised country of birth (so for Kosovo-born players that would still be Serbia), unless he has done something internationally to alter this, or explicitly said that he considers himself a certain nationality. But if (and only if) he has done so, his nationality is beyond dispute, and our own guidelines would seem to support my stance. By all means propose a change to that guideline, but that's currently the consensus view. WFCforLife (talk) 20:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

In some specific cases I might agree with you. Nordin Amrabat was a Dutch player because he has represented Dutch national youth teams and because he was born in the Netherlands, but since he recently announced his switch to Morocco, I think he should be listed as a Moroccan player. Jonathan de Guzman was a Canadian player, until he became a Dutch citizen and announced his decision to play for the Netherlands. But in all such cases, the national teams have been fully recognized by the continental and the international federations. Because Kosovo hasn't been recognized by UEFA and FIFA, it's not an official team and the players can't possibly officially represent Kosovo. The moment UEFA and FIFA recognize Kosovo is the moment the flag can be used, imo. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

WFCforLife, can you answer one very simple question for me: has the Football Federation of Kosovo been recognized by FIFA and UEFA, the two confederations that run football in Europe? 94.212.31.237 (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

We both know the answer, but I'm not going to deal with that until you respond to my last comment. You may not agree with my view, but in every post I have made I have attempted to address your points, before going on to a different one. I think that's the best way to form a discussion. WFCforLife (talk) 20:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, in answer to your question, the FFK has yet to be recognised by either FIFA or UEFA. I know that we don't predict the future on wikipedia but for the little its worth I doubt it ever will. Membership of a continental association is a prerequisite for membership of FIFA, and given that Spain can unilaterally block Gibraltar, I imagine Serbia could do similar with Kosovo if it so wished.

Back to the nationality debate, I think we agree on countries of birth. I think a fair summary of the debate is that you believe that a non-FIFA nation or territory is irrelevant, while I believe that giving a FIFA flag when a player has represented a non-FIFA nation or territory is misleading. Would you agree with that summary (albeit disagree with my opinion)? WFCforLife (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

No. You have to have a FIFA recognised flag. And, the majority of the players didn´t represented any, neither FIFA or non-FIFA recognized team, but they have to have a (country wich they would eventually represent) flag (obviously FIFA recognized one). Simple. Please see how it´s done in other well known Football(soccer) websites. And all (at least the important ones) agree with this.

P.S.: It doesn´t necessarily have to be the country of birth! FkpCascais (talk) 03:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

A fair summary, although I disagree with one point. I do not believe that "a non-FIFA nation or territory is irrelevant". No nation or territory is irrelevant. What I do believe is that we shouldn't list players with non-official national teams. In that sense, Kosovo is similar to Catalonia, Greenland or the Isle of Man. The players may be citizens of Kosovo, but we don't always follow citizenship. This is why British players are not shown with the British flag, but with the flag of either Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland. They are the official national teams, the United Kingdom national football team is not. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 10:33, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that all of your examples are the same. Even if I accept that citizenship does not equate to nationality (which is a somewhat complicated argument, because many countries consider Kosovans as Serbian citizens, others as Kosovan) but working on your thought process what do we do with Greenland? Denmark doesn't consider them Danish. As far as I know FIFA doesn't consider them Danish either, and the reason it has yet to admit Greenland isn't lack of recognition, but because the country does not have any pitches where officially sanctioned matches could be played. Similarly with Gibraltar, the four British football associations (FA, IFA, SFA and FAW) have an agreement not to use "British" players unless they are specifically tied to one of the nations (e.g. Owen Hargreaves has English ancestry). And Fkp, what I am saying is that when there is no other information at all (we don't know their parent's nationality, the player has said nothing, never played internationally) we usually go by country of birth. I'm not suggesting for a second that it's more important than anything else, just that it's often the only thing we know. If we know something else as well, we take the cases on their own merits. WFCforLife (talk) 13:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Well as far as I am aware a player born in Greenland is eligible to play for Denmark. And yes, Greenland aren't blocked from joining FIFA/UEFA for the same reasons as Kosovo are (in that I don't think Denmark are against Greenland joining, seeing as they've already "let" Faroe Islands join), but I don't think we should grant any special treatment for any country aspiring for full independence or FIFA membership (I don't think that would be neutral?). chandler 14:07, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record: at least one Greenland-born footballer has represented Denmark: Jesper Grønkjær. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should treat differently any country aspiring for full independence or FIFA membership (I don't think that would be neutral). WFCforLife (talk) 16:04, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we should treat recognized FIFA members (like Sweden, Bulgaria etc.) differently from non-FIFA members (like Kosovo), regardless of whether they are independent or not. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 16:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

There is allways the possibility of going to the clubs official websites, or the National Associations websites, where many of the players are correctly "nationalized", because they know it. FkpFkpCascais (talk) 19:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

There is non-FIFA football (at least according to the link up above) and FIFA is not the sole decider on reality especially when it is politically divisive. Their job i rules and tournaments not deciding the fate of nations or even a sporting nationality. Regardless, we are getting off topic here. Other situations are different (correct me if Nuuk was the scene of heavy fighting) and we need to stop comparing them. MOS:ICON says it has to be a sovereign state. Kosovo is listed as one here on wikipeida and could meet the definition in the lead (Wikipedia can be wrong). It looks to me that Kosovo is a sovereign state but is not internationally recognized. If the guy has been capped by Kosovo (which happens) or holds a Kosovo passport (do they have those?) then why not? If the guy talks smack (I don't know i this has happened or not) about Serbia he probably shouldn't have the Serbian flag. This goes the other way around if someone has declared they are eligible for Serbia and Kosovo can go away. MOS:ICON also recommends no flag at all still but I have yet to see anyone show the balls to police the list with a single flag missing.Cptnono (talk) 21:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

When it comes to sporting nationalities within football it is pretty much up to FIFA, this is why we have the Faroe Islands (not a sovereign state as far as I'm aware), we have England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we have American Samoa. In football they're separate, in various other instances they aren't. So yes, it is FIFA who decides what a sporting nationality is when competing in football run by them. chandler 21:16, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA doesn't run all of football. They run most of it. For Scotland "The Scottish flag would be used with regard to the FIFA World Cup, but that of the UK for the Olympics." so there is obviously some amount of discretion afforded by the guideline. "If a sportsperson has not competed at the international level, then the eligibility rules of the international sport governing body (such as IRB, FIFA, IAAF, etc.) should be used. If these rules allow a player to represent two or more nations, then the a reliable source should be used to show who the sportsperson has chose to represent." You can easily interpret Kosovo vs Albania or Saudi Arabia as international matches. And of course "Avoid flag usage... that is likely to raise editorial controversy over political or other factual matters about a biography subject."Cptnono (talk) 18:26, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

"If a sportsperson has not competed at the international level, then the eligibility rules of the international sport governing body (such as IRB, FIFA, IAAF, etc.) should be used." I think this is pretty clear, looking at Football Manager both players are labelled as Albanian, which I think is more or less the sporting nationality of every Kosovo-Albanian who doesn't want to play for Serbia chandler 18:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

:Is Football Manager really being proposed as a source?? Ethnic sensibility does not comprise fact: if a player was not born in Albania, and has not represented Albania (but has apparently played against them), what justification is there for an Albanian flag? The ethnic group he belongs to associate themselves more closely with Albania than any other nation??? If he could ignore the fact of his birth, and that of his parents, what nationality would he choose???? Kevin McE (talk) 21:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

If a sportsperson has not competed . I think if someone has been capped by Kosovo then they have been capped by Kosovo. Some countries have recognized them. And don't forget Avoid flag usage... that is likely to raise editorial controversy over political or other factual matters about a biography subject. I can bold, too. I would thnk Kosovo be better common sense wise and might hurt the Kosovo players feelings less but both flags run into a problem with that provision.Cptnono (talk) 22:02, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not whether the country has been recognised: it is whether the national football team has been recognised, and in this case, it has not been recognised by any authoritative international body, therefore it is no more a sporting nationality (for football, at least) than is Catalonia. If it is considered offensive to give the flag of birth, leave the flag-space blank and put a footnote at the bottom of the squad list. Kevin McE (talk) 09:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

It has been recognized by tournament organizers but not the primary and more internationally recognized body (FIFA). I would rather see no flag then one that is potentially incorrect (which could be both).Cptnono (talk) 21:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposal on very large PROD and cleanup project

Per an earlier discussion, there are (understandably) a lot of very questionable articles regarding notability in the catacombs of categories in this project. With a short discussion above, a few things have been noticed, not particularly enjoyed to have, but have been impossible to address:

• Leagues, clubs and players far under the project-specific notability guidelines
• Many leagues have out-of-date information considering teams are promoted and relegated (and have not been edited in over a year)
• Many clubs have rosters that must either be out of date at this time, and/or have no citations whatsoever
• To this point, it has been considered too large an undertaking to review this all
• Articles are added to Wikipedia so quickly that it has been impossible to maintain notability standards within the project
• Due to special notability policy here, when combined with different admin views of deletion, some articles are being deleted unnecessarily or kept extemporaneously

Fixes? Well, the scope and statement of Wikipedia comes into play here. We're here as an encyclopedia and not a collection of everything. Oh the other hand, notability is subjective and guidelines are get as a reasonable view after discussed as consensus. Having one specific line to cross is not particularly in the spirit of the project. The more details about nation league pyramids that dig deeper into the lower levels might be good for reference and may be good to know of, but can we knowingly allow scores of articles in the project that must be incorrect data at this point given the fluidity of team movements that change a league's members each year? The big red flag that upsets me about the "spirit of Wikipedia" is that to solve the factual inaccuracies of this encyclopedia will essentially require deleting an extremely large number of articles.

I'd like clarification on this, so it's well-established immediately. From how the current notability guidelines read, I interpret it as:

• Players who have, at any point, played at level 5 or above or meet the other special criteria are considered notable
• Teams playing in leagues at level 5 or higher (or equivalent) are considered notable
• Leagues containing notable teams (meaning level 5 or higher) are considered notable

Pretty clear, but like I said before it's a little confusing here because of teams changing levels. My suggestion would be that in any process of finding articles below standards we leave tier 6 alone on the possibility of a movement either past or this next season. One would think that a team that had previously been at these levels but relegated wouldn't have articles deleted, so keeping existing 6s would avoid a short-term debate of more changes. Leagues are also pretty simple. Players are more complicated. Players from nearly a hundred years ago are around, and for every year up to today. It would be impossible to determine notability considering so many changes with teams and leagues in the past, so I would argue that these not be changed regardless of what their real context might have been. Since we can't check those and might end up questioning some that "should" be left alone, I suggest we leave all player articles alone. A deletion standard as a whole would turn too subjective and would require reviewing playing history of possibly thousands of people. Keep what's there and enforce precisely in the future, at least until we can refine results better.

Note: Articles that do not meet standard Wikipedia quality standards such as citations would be removed, just as the project notability guidelines already say.

Action? I'm basically suggesting a systematic and massive PROD project to clean it all up. I have thoughts on holding up the standards in the future but that isn't important for now. On a micro-level it seems silly, but if you look at the entire system on the macro-level, it's the core of this entire project. Though non-standard notability or some incorrect data doesn't do any "harm" by existing, if this were a project I'd worked especially hard on I'd be very frustrated that so many people had walked around the policies and standards I had helped develop. I'm hoping people here agree. Even if I'm the only person who went through things I wouldn't care, but of course discussion and opinions would be good as it's not my place to vandalize a project. Even if it's PRODs per their guidelines, this is a big enough scale that I want opinions. The process would be recursion from higher and downward through teams. From there, we could spot other articles and categories with nothing but or large numbers of red links and could clean those up. Players would be the last step and would again be found by red links. Because some players have special circumstances or other notability reasons, they'd need more scrutiny and should be left for last anyway.

Thoughts? I really think it'd be good for this project (and many other, for that matter) do to such precise cleanup and quality assurance work. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 17:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

A note, the Wikiproject notability essay here is not a Wikipedia Guideline or Policy and does not have acceptance from the wider community. Any Prods should be based on the notability standards of WP:N, WP:ORG and WP:ATHLETE regardless of the level played at. Camw (talk) 22:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course, of course. The guidelines here just clear up the massive grey area of the pyramid structure since nothing else has that many levels of division. The articles would of course need to meet the standard Wikipedia criteria. And, hm. I had assumed those guidelines had been drafted from project consensus, so I suppose more opinions would be good. My opinion would be for it to stay be 5 since that is indeed to point there the total number of leagues and clubs start to get cut down significantly. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 01:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

• Assuming we are talking specifically about English football then your understanding of the notability rules of thumb is a bit skewed, as follows:
  • Players who have, at any point, played at level 5 or above or meet the other special criteria are considered notable - should read level 4, not level 5. Level 5 has never been a fully professional league, so players at that level are not covered by WP:ATHLETE, although of course if they pass the WP:GNG they could have an article
  • Teams playing in leagues at level 5 or higher (or equivalent) are considered notable - nope, level 10 has always been the accepted cut-off, as that's the level at which teams are eligible to enter the FA's national cup competitions
  • Leagues containing notable teams (meaning level 5 or higher) are considered notable - there's never been an accepted notability cut-off for leagues, but it would certainly be lower than level 5. We have Good Articles on leagues at level 9 and level 10.....
• Obviously for countries other than England the rules would potentially be vastly different -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:20, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a note to be very careful about applying this too strictly. Notability is not solely conferred by having played professionally, or been in a professional team, or even in a professional league. A great number of notable players haven't done any of these things (most of them historical, but still). We're in no great rush to get this completed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Admin needed at Martin Bayly

Hi, can an admin please take a look at Martin Bayly; I am dealing with an IP hopper who refuses to listen to my warnings & explanations. Bayly's first youth team is taken from a book called The Wolves Who's Who, but he insists that no team of that name exists and so removes all mention of it from the article. He also removes this player's international details because the youth national team he played for (which has a FIFA reference confirming 3 apps!) is redlinked. Regards, GiantSnowman 18:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm. I see your frustration but there are a couple of problems. Where is the connection between that reference and the first youth team? I see the edit that added the club into the infobox but the reference is added to a separate section about his First Division debut and limited appearances (the youth team text was added to that paragraph at a later stage). Calling the users edits vandalism is probably not helpful, it seems he has good intentions from some of the article expansion that he did do in the last couple of days. You are both on the line of 3RR (which doesn't apply to vandalism, but disruptive editing/stubbornness is not necessarily vandalism) so I'm going to ask him to stop edit warring while discussion takes place, and I would ask that you do the same. Is there any chance that there is another reference available (or someone on this project that has the book in question and can confirm that is where the information has come from?) that can confirm the youth club and put the debate to rest? Camw (talk) 23:15, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I've left the user a note on his most recent IP talk page and hopefully we can move things forward. Camw (talk) 23:27, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I realised I was coming close to 3RR, hence why I asked for some assistance here. I assumed that because the 'Little Bray' information was added at the same time as the book, they were from the same source...either way, it still doesn't justify him removing the under-20 caps from the infobox...GiantSnowman 23:31, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I have also made Wolvesweb (talk · contribs), who added the information about Little Bray, aware of this discussion. GiantSnowman 23:36, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Good, hopefully Wolvesweb can confirm quickly and the IP user will accept the information if and when it is shown to be correct and properly referenced. Camw (talk) 23:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

From the Wolves Who's Who: "Bayly played Schoolboy football in his home city and after a brief spell with Little Bray FC he joined Wolves as an apprentice in 1982, turning professional in July 1984" Wolvesweb (talk) 13:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Craig Eastmond

Sigh, yet another lame edit war I have somehow found myself embroiled in. Supergunner08 (talk · contribs) insists on adding an 'Assists' column to Craig Eastmond's stats table; I removed it and, when I was reverted, I explained to him that there is no reliable source for number of assists, and so we shouldn't use it. He ignored me, removed my discussion from his talk page, and reverted me again. So, am I wrong, or what? GiantSnowman 02:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

No, you are 100% correct. --JonBroxton (talk) 02:39, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

So http://www.arsenal.com/match-menu/3203881/first-team/arsenal-v-liverpool?tab=report http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/8323097.stm aren`t reliable sources? Luka666 (talk) 12:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

They are one off match reports - what about the rest of his career?! GiantSnowman 12:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

@ JonBroxton and Giant, rewatch the match on tv again and you will clearly Eastmond assisted the 1st goal by poking the ball thruough for Merida after winning it off Liverpool player. Please watch the match highlight again if you can. Just because assists are not tracked by stats databases doesnt mean you cant have it in the wiki article & if you want to verify assists then bloody watch matches instead hiding behind website stats technicalities which are even sometimes incorrect. For example soccerbase list Vito Mannone as 195cm in height but in fact he is 191cm

Also Giantsnowman talking about how it is relevant for talking rest of his career, we are not into 80s, TV covers all matches with skysports providing 60 minutes highlight package in their footyfirst package and BBC providing minimum of 5 minutes highlights for non-televised premiership matches, while skysports & BBC also have packages for non-televised matches plus match reports from individual clubs which even non league teams have. Take Alexander Hleb for example who is more prolific for making assists than scoring goals thus by not including that contribution in his article, his achievement looks less impressive & less credible.--Supergunner08 (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

As I said on your talk page (before you removed it), I have no doubts Eastmond had an assist on his debut - that is not the issue here! The issue is that it is simply not feasible to ask people to watch a career's worth of highlights to see how many assists someone 0 it is not verifiable and it doesn't have any merit for inclusion on Wikipedia - hence why infoboxes only include apps & goals. Oh, and saying that Hleb is "more prolific" for assists than goals is WP:POV. GiantSnowman 13:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is it not feasible GiantSnowman? when other football article for players on Wiki that have assists column are updated regularly, its pure nonsense to say it isnt feasible. You dont even need to watch career's worth of highlights to verify assist, all you need is the build-up leading to a goal, my reference to highlight package was made bcuz you were making comments like we live in the dark ages of 60s 70s 80s where only get info on particular matter from an extemely limited source [no TV, no match report, no highlights, no web].--Supergunner08 (talk) 14:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Where did I say that we live in dark ages? And what other articles have assist columns? - they shouldn't as it can't be properly verified! GiantSnowman 14:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Assists can be problematic, primarily because there is not complete consensus on even how to define one. From assist (football): "Recording assists is not part of the official Laws of the Game and the criteria for an assist to be awarded may vary." And while I have seen some pages that do keep assists tallies (e.g. Cesc Fàbregas) there are almost certainly more pages of high-profile players who do not (Steven Gerrard, David Villa and Ryan Giggs to name a few). Please remember this policy as well: WP:NOT#STATS. I'm personally unconvinced that assists deserve a column space on any footballer's page, as they are not as rigidly defined or recorded as in, say, hockey. This is only my opinion. Best, Cocytus [»talk«] 15:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

You are starting bore me so much, while dont you do your research before typing [Benzema, gourcuff, balotelli, ben arfa, lassana diarra, thierry henry, wilshere, roque santa cruz & many more] have assist column. Dark ages comments was sarcastic snipe at you for saying it isnt is realistic to follow whether a players makes an assist or not when we live new age of modern technology and you need to read verified again becasue it CLEARLYS states electronic media & mainstream newspaper ARE reliable sources so is my 2 original source not good enough for ignorant smartass. As for you saying other articles should have assists column, please quit commenting out of your backside like you own the place, stats page on some website is not the only available source in the world. Please remember that you are not the only person in world responsible for editing all articles as events takes place [Billions of wiki editors] especially in relation to "They are one off match reports - what about the rest of his career?! GiantSnowman 12:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)"--Supergunner08 (talk) 15:40, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, please remain civil, Secondly, I am well aware that electronic media is acceptable; however, if Eastmond gets 300 assists in his career, are you going to add 300 seperate match reports to his article, all of which clearly state "Eastmond got an assist in this game"?! Thirdly, just because some articles have assists columns in their stats table, doesn't mean that every article should - please familiarise yourself with WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, which can be extended to content as well as articles. Oh, and when consensus that assists are NOT needed is reached, the columns in the tables on the articles you mentioned will also be deleted. Regards, GiantSnowman 15:48, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

GiantSnowman is absolutely right. While other leagues (such as Major League Soccer) routinely track assist stats, many many leagues - England being one of them - do not, and as such it's virtually impossible to have correct assist stats for every player, especially as there is no verifiable data source for who gets the assist in each game (beyond watching the game, which is WP:OR). Also, as GiantSnowman says, if this player - or any other player - goes on to have a long and successful career, the assist stats are going to fall out of date very quickly, which will render the data useless. --JonBroxton (talk) 16:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I will not be civil with idiots like you, it isnt club or newspaper matchreports alone, espn player page/profile have also started collecting assists made by players, http://www.altomfotball.no/element.do?cmd=tournamentMain&tournamentId=230&seasonId=331, internet football highlights [101 greatgoals, youtube] can be used as a combined source. I didnt say bcuz other articles have one thus Eastmond's article should have one, go back to my previous comments, i said a key contributon like that should acknowledged in career statistics and while only only certain or unusual assists should edited into the main text article like e.g. Walcott 60 yard run in the CL against Liverpool and and another 50 yard run in the Prem against Liverpool last season. Just because you two are too thick to find information doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Do you bloody research, until then you arent worth my further comments--Supergunner08 (talk) 16:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

It is not really a choice to be civil, it is a Wikipedia policy: no personal attacks. Additionally, civility is one of the Five pillars, under the code of conduct. Please refrain from making such comments in the future. As it has been pointed out, the English Premier League (of which Arsenal F.C. is a member of), does not track assists officially (as I mentioned in my earlier comment, assists in football are not rigidly defined like they are in hockey, and what constitutes an assist in one league may not in another; additionally, not all leagues keep track of this statistic). What one website lists in the assist columns could vary from place to place, since it would be an individual website's decision to award an assist (or alternatively what consider as their source for their website), since it is not officially tracked. Sources could easily become conflicted. Also, YouTube is generally not considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. This was merely an event in the Carling Cup. I'm quite surprised (and rather saddened) that this has gotten to this point. Everyone, please remain civil. Cocytus [»talk«] 16:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

If you're using ESPN as your source, then you're wrong about him getting an assist in the first place: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/players/stats?id=136379&cc=5901. They don't give him one. This is a prime example of another reason why we don't track assists: not only are the stats collected inconsistently, but there is disagreement on who actually got the assist(s). While it's obvious when appearances are made and goals are scored, the fact that assist stats are not routinely collected and data sources conflict means they are unverifiable in leagues where they are not part of the standard dataset (like England). --JonBroxton (talk) 16:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, the reasoning (as I understand it) that Supergunner has given for including assists in the first place is related to this comment: "Take Alexander Hleb for example who is more prolific for making assists than scoring goals thus by not including that contribution in his article, his achievement looks less impressive & less credible." Please remember our goal here is not make a player look "impressive" or even "credible," but merely to provide reliable, neutrally-worded information. Assist tallies, as has been pointed out, isn't a reliable statistic in the English Premier League, since it is not officially kept, and thus is open to interpretation. Cocytus [»talk«] 17:04, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

@ JonBroxton, your type of comment is exactly was is so annoying [read prior comments before you start commenting yourself and stop changing points of argument everytime], look at my last comment again, i said all those sources should be used as a combination not specific ones, why because i also previous said human can makes mistakes like the Vito Mannone example that i gave. Any who actually watched the knows he toed the ball towards Merida who scored so Espn did get it wrong which giantsnowman agreed to. @ Cocytus, i was wrong to add "Take Alexander Hleb for example who is more prolific for making assists than scoring goals thus by not including that contribution in his article, his achievement looks less impressive & less credible." however dont try depict information, i believe assist column is key contribution which took place not something made up or a myth to dress up an article.--Supergunner08 (talk) 17:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

So, ESPN have it wrong, the Norwegian website you linked to ([13]) seems to only provide assist stats for League games and not cup games, and Soccerbase ([14]), the BBC ([15]) and Sky Sports ([16]) don't track assists at all. You really don't see the problem here? Where are you getting your verified stats from (YouTube and watching the game don't count, because that is WP:OR). --JonBroxton (talk) 17:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for replying civilly. It makes things so much easier and much less tense. I'm sure we can all work this out if we stay cool-headed. Regarding the ESPN thing, I think that's exactly what we're trying to illustrate. Since these stats aren't officially recorded by any league body (like The FA, for example), there is, by definition, a propensity of a variety of totals. Let's explore a hypothetical situation. Let's say ESPN retains it's zero assists total for right now, but another source, let's call it "Source X" gives him 1 assist. As the games go on, ESPN gives him two assists. Their tally is two now. "Source X" on the the other hand, gives him credit for the same two that ESPN did, but, since assists aren't rigidly or consistently defined, credits him with three more. Now the totals are: ESPN - 2 assists, Source X - 4 assists. Which do we cite? Which is deemed correct? Hopefully now you are beginning to understand the underlying problem--there is no consistency when it comes to English Premier League assist totals, because they are not an official statistic. Lastly, I don't quite understand your statement "however dont try depict information, i believe assist column is key contribution which took place not something made up or a myth to dress up an article." If you could elaborate, I'd be happy to address it. Let me just point out that I did not intend to depict assists as unimportant (however you define them) or "a myth". I understand that assists are vital to goals oftentimes, but what we define as assists quite likely could be different. Best, Cocytus [»talk«] 17:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's one idea: what do you think of including wording regarding the assist (and its citation) in the text, but not keeping an assist column? That would seem to address this assist while also allay other concerns. Since he is not a first-team regular as of now, who knows how long it could be before another assist. We probably should only include notable assists in the article, and since this is his first professional one (and the match was against Liverpool F.C., it probably merits inclusion. And on that note, is notability even met in this article? The measuring stick I am familiar with (per WP:ATH) typically calls for the player in question to participate in a league match to meet notability (if you were involved in the Jack Wilshere debates, you'll understand. The Carling Cup is really a pretty low-importance competition, when considered in light of things such as the Leagues, FA Cup, etc. Cocytus [»talk«] 17:41, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

• Per you notability question, yes, notability per WP:ATHLETE is presumed as the League cup is a competitive competition between fully professional clubs, (requirement for entry is being in top 4 English leagues) despite any Wilshire debates. ATHLETE states fully professional level of a sport, not league. Quite why people consider it a lesser competition is beyond me. It still gets the winner a European slot, and it has all the same teams as the FA cup (well, all the same teams that have any real show of winning it, anyway). Just historical tradition I guess that the FA cup is the prestigious cup competition.--ClubOranje^T 06:28, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

"the reasoning (as I understand it) that Supergunner has given for including assists in the first place is related to this comment: "Take Alexander Hleb for example who is more prolific for making assists than scoring goals thus by not including that contribution in his article, his achievement looks less impressive & less credible." Thats what you said it isnt true, i believe assist column is key contribution which took place not something made up or a myth to dress up an article. Espn pages does have assist for cup games and also if uploaded youtube videos isnt allowed, bbc http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/8332402.stm and sky 's http://www.skysports.com/video/clips/0,23791,16557_5660060,00.html are reliable —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supergunner08 (talk • contribs) 18:00, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry if I misrepresented any of your words. Assists are undoubtedly important, I don't think anyone's disputing that. I think the issue here is a precise number of assists given to a player, and the inherent unreliability of those statistics. The two sources you just provided are absolutely perfect for this assist in particular, but in order to update and retain a column of statistics which (I'm assuming) will eventually grow to more than 1, additional sources will be required. This would best be done by a statistics citation. However, in the case of assists, this is unreliable, and is bound to differ from database to database, since assists aren't an official statistic kept by the Premier League, merely something that spectators and fans come up with on their own. In order to maintain an authentic column of assists, each would have to be cited individually, which is not only unfeasible, but borders on original research, which is not allowed. One simply can't watch all his matches, determine on his own the number of assists he attained, put it in the article and say, "Look, I've watched his matches, and this is the number." Cocytus [»talk«] 18:09, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Supergunner, You're missing the point. No-one is arguing that Eastmond touched the ball during the run-up to that goal. We get it - you think he got an assist. What we're saying is: how do we track this going forward, for all players? ESPN has the stats wrong, and Soccerbase, the BBC and Sky Sports (the three main sites for collecting stats on English clubs) don't track assists. It's impossible to come to any kind of verifiable certainty about how many assists a player has when the main websites don't track the data and/or conflict with each other. How do you suggest we obtain assist stats for past matches? If we do it for one we should be able to do it for all, and if we can't, then we shouldn't include the data because it then undermines the statistical integrity of the whole project. --JonBroxton (talk) 18:13, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Pure technicality JonBroxton, Sky do keep track of assists but they only make it available for skysports news when it a particuar player has dip in form or increase in form [by comparing year on year performance], also it is more a culture thing players score are immediately declared as having good game, so i think the fact that some websites are starting display assists by players mean culture team players is also being recognized. You guys have your views and i have mine so i guess its agree to disagree.--Supergunner08 (talk) 19:58, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "agree to disagree" on Wikipedia - we need consensus, which it seems we have acheived, and which seems like has gone against you. GiantSnowman 20:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Supergunner, you do understand that different people define an assist in different ways and, in the case of the Premier League, where it is an unofficial statistic, they are technically correct? How do you personally define an assist? It could very well be different than my definition. It's the same with statistics bureaus. Why should we accept Skysports' numbers as the final authority? With whom do we side if two major news agencies give different tallies? Cocytus [»talk«] 20:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly my point, Supergunner. If they "only make it available for skysports news" (your words), then how are we supposed to include these stats here with inline citations? It's impossible, because the sources conflict and no-one collects the information with the accuracy we need. Also, let's say we decide to start collecting assist stats from here on in; how do we retrospectively collect these stats? How many assists has Ryan Giggs had? How many assists has David Beckham had? How many assists has Paul Merson had? George Best? Stanley Matthews? We can collect stats for appearances and goals for all these players, but we can't do it for assists because there's no historical data source. It's exactly the same reason why we don't count cup games in the stats, only league games, because the historical data is incomplete. --JonBroxton (talk) 20:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

@ snowman, quit talking nonsense because i dont agree with your views and neither do your other crew members agree me so get over youself, it didnt mean i was backing down. You cant debate it forever my view wii NOT change.

@ Cocytus, i am refering to direct assist not assist through winning penalties or rebound shots.

@ Broxton, thats the kind rubbish comments have been making, changing subject matter slightly by asking me question about Stanley matthew & Best's career, you have to start with technology somewhere even though it not have been done in the past. As for Ryan Giggs's all time assist statistics in the Prem is available from http://www.statbunker.co.uk/football/ktg/index.php?PL=ktgalltime&Code=EPL&statType=assist also stop referring to yourself as "WE" bcuz you dont own wiki --Supergunner08 (talk) 21:17, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Supergunner, do you know what it means to have a civilized discussion? Are you capable of talking to people without insulting them or flying off the handle? Of course I don't own Wikipedia. I was referring to "we" are the members of the WP:FOOTY task force who are responsible for the majority of the footy articles here, and who - through civilized discussion and consensus - decide how best to structure the articles here. CIVILIZED discussion. CONSENSUS. Calm down, and stop being so confrontational, or I will report you for repeated violations of the WP:NPA policy. --JonBroxton (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I second Jon's last warning - we're trying to have a mature discussion to sort this problem out and you resort to personal attacks. Stop it. I don't understand what "neither do your other crew members agree me" means, but out of everyone who has contributed to this thread, you are the only one still calling for assists to be included...GiantSnowman 21:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Supergunner, consider these points from Assist (football): "After goals from rebounds those players were awarded an assist who had shot on target. After goals scored on penalty or by a directly converted free-kick the fouled player received a point." Those were included in FIFA's Technical Study Group's criteria for assists at the 1986 World Cup. These criteria were changed for the 1990 World Cup to no longer include penalties. This illustrates the point that assists in football are a notoriously ill-defined (primarily, I would argue, due to the lack of consistent records) statistic. Why should anyone take your definition over FIFA's or anyone else's for that matter? This is the slippery slope that is tread upon when one adds assists to articles. The assist article also mentions that "Record of assists was virtually not kept at all until the end of the 20th century." Lastly, I don't think JonBroxton was using "we" as some sort of ownership claim, but merely as a Wikipedia community as a whole. Achieving consensus is one of the most fundamental concepts here. Best, Cocytus [»talk«] 21:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely everything is recorded nowadays in the Premier League not only assists, also fouls, number of ballcontacts, good passes, bad passes, distance covered by a player during a match. Some coaches like to know these things, but are these data really accurate? I couldn't care less to be honest eventhough I'm a statsfreak Cattivi (talk) 02:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

• First up, I don't think assists are particularly notable per-se. The idea that someone slaps a corner across and another player knocks it in gives the corner taker an assist seems a bit of a sham really, but I guess the same argument could be applied to the guy that taps it in over the goal line getting all the plaudits for scoring after another player (in fact the team as a whole) has done a whole lot of other good work to get it there. Mentioning in the text that Eastmond provided the assist on debut for a goal, trivially notable for this player since he has done bugger all else. If and when he has a long and notable career it is likely to become even less notable in the scheme of things and end up being quietly removed in some subsequent re-write of his article. As for any plans of adding such a stat to the infobox or the other stat boxes appearing in articles, I'm pretty much opposed, largely on notability, and not-withstanding recentism availability of electronic data, verifiability. Next thing we know people will be adding number of passes, blocks, tackles, saves....WP:NOTSTATS springs to mind. If someone is noted for a large number of assists, it will draw attention and can maybe be justified in the text, but otherwise, particularly notable assists only should be mentioned - and never will be by me as I don't consider them notable - same as first goal may be worth a mention, but describing every goal is simply groupie fanaticism.--ClubOranje^T 07:39, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I dont care how you perceive assists Orange & Catty [give it what ever definition you want], evidence for assists are now been provided publicly by various sources thus it will always have a place in club statictis format. As for Thumper, there is no Moving ON just because i wasnt present due to some business meetings.

@ FkpCascais, stop your antagonizing opinions "you are wrong", as a matter of fact, i am correct. Assist are verifiable through electronic data and whatever other categories are brought in by other editors in not my perogative ORANGE.--Supergunner08 (talk) 22:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Supergunner, you're not doing yourself any favors here, and you're completely misunderstanding the bigger picture of what we're talking about. All you seem to be interested in is including the assist stats on Eastman's page, and that's all you're interested in. What we are trying to work out are the wider implications of including assist stats in the career tables of English Premier League players, and whether we can do that - with accuracy, consistency, and using proper sources - across the board. If we do it for one player, we NEED to look at whether we can implement it on other player articles in order to maintain the statistical validity of the articles; if we can't do it while maintining proper standards, then we shouldn't do it at all. And, for the second time, please remain civil, stop insulting people, and stop taking such a defensive and aggressive tone. We're all here trying to make this project better. --JonBroxton (talk) 02:29, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Moving on

So what's the verdict here? In the interests of keeping everyone productive it's obviously best if we can find a compromise. Is there any site which reliably tracks assists in English football? I agree that drawing them individually from match reports is not something that we can do, but if a reliable external party does it then that's fine with me. If it turns out to be at least practical to list assists in English football then we can discuss whether this is something we want to do or not. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:02, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I've got two concerns about assists. Firstly, a player shouldn't have an incomplete assists column, it should either be complete (and referenced by sources which recorded them in a consistent way throughout his career), or not there at all. Secondly, if we are going to allow assists, we must use a consistent definition of an assist throughout the encyclopaedia for the stat to be meaningful. In other words, we would have to agree on one source for all assists for the statistic to have any sort of encyclopaedic value. WFCforLife (talk) 20:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I was following this debate and I don´t find any reason for a compromise here. The general consensus, and I add myself in it, is that the assists column is NOT to be used for various reasons. ClubOranje already said that if it is a "remarcable quality" of the player that is worth mentioning in the article, it should have some words about it in the text. Otherwise, we would be creating a precedent wich could lead us to various undesirable situations in the future. Next, we´ll have number of penalties, yellow/red cards, substitutions with goals, and every other kind of info that we soccer-lovers DO LIKE, but this is not our SoccerPedia, and we have to follow the general gidelines. Sorry Supergunner, you´re wrong. FkpCascais (talk) 22:03, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

What is antagonising in "You´re wrong"? I think it is right the oposite, I´m quite clear. Maybe you didn´t understood in what exactly I find your position wrong, beside being rude with some people that I respect. I find wrong that you insist pushing some idea that was already demonstrated, in various ways, that was not aplicable. I love soccer statistics, but it´s not aplicable here. And I´ll give you another reason why: if we start using "assists" for English Premier League players, people from other nations would like to add that stat to their league players as well, and that will start to be seriously complicated. It´s nothing personal, but the primary purpose here is to make players biographies, not a statistics collection (at least not in a players biographies articles), so with appearances and goals, plus a text about a player and his career, is quite enought information for an encyclopedia. Why don´t you write about it in the text? FkpCascais (talk) 00:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. In theory I understand the case for assists, but it's just not workable, as an assist from one organisation won't always be considered an assist by another. WFCforLife (talk) 12:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

@Supergunner: Playerappearances are official and verifiable, professional databases will use official FA records (referee cards) . Goals scored: Disputed goals go to the disputed goals panel (at least in England) This means goals scored have an official status as well, unfortunately not all databases correct their data, this is one of the reasons why goalscorers can be different in various databases (not every databaseowner wants to pay extra money for just a few different goalscorers) Assists have no official status. They are put in a database of a company who sell their stats to various databaseowners, life during a match by a student earning some pocketmoney. ever heard of a disputed assist panel? I certainly haven't Cattivi (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Charles Bunyan

Does anyone know if the Charles Bunyan who managed the Belgian national side in 1914 is the same Charles Bunyan who played at the 1920 Olympics for GB? A bit of a topsy-turvy career if it is, going from manager to player! GiantSnowman 04:39, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Charles Bunyan who played at the 1920 Olympics was the son of Charles "Charlie" Bunyan who managed the Belgian national team. Source. Sonuwe (talk) 07:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC) from Belgium.

Wow! - as the linked article says "The Bunyans were - and probably still are - a remarkable family." The father definitely warrants an article on WP. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. If created, I will translate it to the Dutch WP. Sonuwe (talk) 09:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, an interesting family. Charles Jr. brother, Maurice Bunyan, also managed current French champion FC Girondins de Bordeaux.--Latouffedisco (talk) 09:36, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I will create stubs on the Bunyans in a little bit! GiantSnowman 12:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Charles Bunyan, Sr., Charles Bunyan, Jr., Maurice Bunyan - done. GiantSnowman 13:53, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added the Football League stats for Charles Sr., but regarding Charles Jr., allfootballers says that Chelsea have never had a player called Charles Bunyan on their books? -- BigDom 14:20, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he never played for the first team...? GiantSnowman 15:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a bit of a problem with the Bunyan who was part of the Olympic Squad (He was an unused sub). According to the Times digital archive his initials were M.T. Charlie was Charles Cyrille 7-11-1893 Maurice was Maurice Taylor 14-10-1894 (Date of Birth from playerhistory.com) Whoever it was, it was not unusual for Amateur players to play as guest players for professional clubs for short periods Cattivi (talk) 15:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

This site confirms that Charles Bunyan did play in the Olympics. His name is given as "Charles M. T. Bunyan". GiantSnowman 15:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

here is the match line up [17] Here's another source for his initials [18] Cattivi (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, odd. Regardless of him playing or not, I still believe the Bunyan in question was Charles, Jr - as confirmed by FIFA and Chesterfield FC. GiantSnowman 16:09, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Do what you want. In my opinion the FIFA site is an unreliable site but tha't is based on own research Cattivi (talk) 16:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Charles Cyrille Bunyan played in Belgium, for Racing Bruxelles and KAA Gent [19], till 1920.--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

It was also Charles Cyrille Bunyan who was the manager of Anderlecht (source), age 28 at that moment and not his father as mentioned now. Further, I really doubt if Charles Jr. was the person that was part of the Olympic squad. Maurice was the much better player of the two brothers (Charles: 55 matches, 12 goals in Belgium; Maurice: 158 matches, 150 goals in Belgium) and during WW1, when no competition in Belgium, Maurice played for Arsenal and Chelsea. I saw on a Italian site a reference to a letter of Maurice, archived at Arnesal. May be Maurice was the one playing in the Olympic squad. Sonuwe (talk) 22:46, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you guys want to adjust the three articles accordingly then, based on your new research? GiantSnowman 22:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Why not, Snowman? I was also wondering about this "Charles M.T. Bunyan" on the Olympic squad... M.T. definitely looks like "Maurice Taylor" Bunyan. What I believe is that the biographies and careers of the 3 Bunyans have been mixed up...--Latouffedisco (talk) 09:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm Bunyan playing a couple of matches for Chelsea in 1917. Wartime seasons can't be found on allfootballers.com

Cattivi (talk) 11:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, if Charles Jr. only played for Chelsea during the war (ie. not in a fully-pro national league) and it was Maurice who played in the Olympics, then Charles Jr. would surely fail ATHLETE? -- BigDom 13:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, we are not so sure about the Bunyan at the Olympics...And WP:ATHLETE is very confusing for early footballers, IMO.--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:06, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

As manager of Anderlecht, and active in the Belgian division, as earlier stated, I am secure that Charles Jr. is notable. GiantSnowman 14:09, 1 November 2009 (UTC)