Talk:Free kick (association football)

Merger proposal[edit]

I propose to merge Direct free kick and Indirect free kick into Free kick (association football) (with the latter becoming a full article rather than a redirect as it is now).

It isn't clear what benefit we gain by having two separate pages. Direct free kicks and indirect free kicks are identical, except for the following details:

the fact that one can score a goal directly, while the other cannot
the list of offences punishable by each
the signal used by the referee to indicate each

All other material we might want to include in the page (e.g. the procedure for taking the kick, punishments for infringements, history) is identical betwen the two subjects. In the case of history, this is a particular problem, because over the years some offences have changed from being punished by an indirect free kick to being punished by a direct free kick. This will make the history section disjointed between the two articles.

In order to maintain the two articles, we would need to duplicate a large amount of material. Most changes to one article would need to be duplicated in the other. While a significant amount of the material on each page does appear to be copy/pasted, there are also discrepancies where there shouldn't be -- for example, in the "Procedure" section, which should be identical (since there is no difference in procedure between the two in the laws of the game).

For a concrete example of an inaccuracy created by this state of affairs, the direct free kick article appears to have been updated with the 2019 law change whereby the ball no longer has to exit the penalty area, while indirect free kick still has the old out-of-date law (stating that the ball is not in play until it leaves the penalty area).

These two pages create a maintenance problem and an organization problem that outweigh whatever marginal benefit is gained from having two top-level articles.

And, while I don't think this is a knock-down argument, it's worth noting that the Laws of the Game have one law covering both indirect and direct free-kicks, and that the great majority of this law is shared between the two, with just an initial section defining the distinction.

Grover cleveland (talk) 01:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support per the nominator. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and these terms are so closely related that separate articles aren't warranted. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:19, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support sensible to make one robust article covering all aspects. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. Would also add that the average reader wouldn't know the difference, so wouldn't know which one to look for. --SuperJew (talk) 21:19, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. Separate articles might be worthwhile if they were covered by separate Laws, but they aren't so we might as well also have them together. Jellyman (talk) 21:27, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. They are both free kicks. SLBedit (talk) 22:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Bizarre we had two articles! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:31, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks for the feedback. Grover cleveland (talk) 17:30, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]