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Dating of professional status

A comment made by ClubOranje at the end of his reply in the recent Algerian thread points out a serious omission in the data here that I have been aware of for some time. If this page is to be a useful resource in determining which leagues provide justification under WP:ATHLETE for considering players to reach a threshhold for notability, it must state in what timescale this criteria is met. I might stumble across details of Juan Onanista who played for Deportivo Wanka in the top Peruvian league in the 1950s (I know DW weren't formed until the 2000s, but I couldn't resist the putative example) and be interested in posting an article for hime, but this list does not clarify whether hat is valid.

At present, only 2 of the 60 nations claiming a professional set up give partial dates to that pro status. Could I suggest that if the list were a table, it would at least highlight the missing info.

So we might have something like:

Country Professional
divisions		 Division Years of fully
professional status		 Source(s)
Argentina 1 Primera División Argentina [1]
Austria 2 Austrian Football Bundesliga [2] (in German - see §1, article (2), page 3)
Austrian Football First League

etc. Any thoughts? Kevin McE (talk) 10:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I had a rant about the hypocrisy and stupidity of this once at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 35#English managers in the Netherlands...
Gil Merrick won 23 caps for England despite training only once a week with his club because he had a full-time job as a games teacher from 1951 to 1960.[3] Ken Green retired from playing because he was finding it a strain combining football with his work as a newsagent.[4] Eddy Brown taught French and PE part-time (no online source). That's three players out of the eleven who played for a First Division club in the 1956 FA Cup Final. Many, many Football League players used to have other jobs because they couldn't live on their football wages, which I believe to be the definition of semi-professional, just as they do in the top-level not-quite-fully-pro leagues of today. Yet one appearance in the Football League in 19xx appears to guarantee notability because it's a fully-pro league 50 or 100 years later.
You're obviously correct: this page ought to clearly define over what time period a league is fully-pro and consequently can afford notability by WP:ATHLETE (as opposed to WP:GNG considerations). But good luck in finding sources. And even better luck in trying to get such an approach applied to "big" leagues in "big" countries the same way it's applied to "smaller" leagues in "smaller" countries :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:24, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I've got the "Best of Charles Buchan's Football Monthly" book, and the articles reprinted in there make it clear that dozens of footballers, some from big-name clubs, held down second jobs in the 1950s, although I'm not sure how many worked during the season itself as opposed to having to find work during the summer when their club wages were dramatically reduced or stopped altogether..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
If it's possible, we should add the time period in which the leagues were fully-pro. I have a feeling this will prove very difficult. Even for leagues like the J. League, which has probably been professional since formation, it might be difficult to find a source showing when it became fully-pro. Jogurney (talk) 14:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

There needs to be a reasonable approach adopted to what fully professional is taken to mean. As has been pointed out above, the Football League has not technically been 'fully-pro' throughout, and indeed check out the reference for England on the article page to prove this was not the case even very recently! If that's the case for the Football League, what other leagues would be left in the list. Therefore, whilst the principle of using dates might seem reasonable, you'd have to be very careful to not have arbitrary cut-off dates with no real meaning. The only time I can really see it working is for countries like Korea and Japan that have started a pro league more or less from scratch. Eldumpo (talk) 12:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Ukranian Leagues

Looking at the Ukranian Football League System article, it suggests that"The first three levels of the football League system in Ukraine are the professional level competitions, the rest are the amateur and sometimes inconsistent." (no reference provided). It lists the Ukrainian Premier Reserve League in this group which is the "is the top reserve team league for the top Ukrainian football teams in the Ukrainian Premier League." Is there any reliable source that the reserves leagues should be considered fully professional? (I can see that the top three levels of the Ukranian league are professional according to the Project page and a source is provided for this) - the reason I ask is that there are loads of players here (like Maksym Hramm, Serhiy Chebotariv, Vyacheslav Turchaniv, Andriy Nelin etc. I have PROD on one Rostislav Bagdasarov but I didn't want to go down the line of doing them all without some consensus.... Steve-Ho (talk) 07:09, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest reserve-team leagues are not generally deemed notable, and players who have played in only these leagues would be candidates for deletion unless they meet wider notability criteria. Eldumpo (talk) 12:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Bagdasarov played in the Ukrainian Second League (see the source I added), but I didn't remove the PROD because I highly doubt that the third level of Ukrainian football is fully-pro. Jogurney (talk) 15:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Sri Lanka Fully Professional?

This guy played with this team in the Premier Championship for Sri Lanka. The Premier Championship (or Sri Lanka for that matter) isn't on either list. So which is it, fully professional or not? SilverserenC 18:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Wrong project - that guy's a cricketer. Sri Lanka Air Force Sports Club plays first-class and List A cricket, so if it can be confirmed that he has played in any such matches then he would meet the cricket project's standards. Cricinfo, which is usually an excellent source for such matters, doesn't list him as having played at this level[5] (it would list statistics below the personal information if it had any, cf.[6]). Phil Bridger (talk) 20:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Whoops, sorry about that, lost my head there and thought that all sports questions related to Fully professional leagues would go here. Thanks. I'll take a look around myself and see if I can find any information supporting he played for them. SilverserenC 20:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Is Cricket Archive not reputable? SilverserenC 20:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but it only says that he played for the under 23s,[7][8] not the Air Force first team. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

W-League (Australia) status

I dispute the professional status of the W-League (Australia) as it is not apparently supported by the references provided and I am unable to find anything to replace them with. The first reference is a translated article that could easily be a misinterpretation and would not be considered reliable in my opinion. The second reference does not take me to a valid article, so if someone can show me whta article that should point to it would be appreciated. The3rd reference does not make any claim about professionalism at all that I can see.--ClubOranjeT 01:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The third reference talks about "professionally run" but that relates to the game's administration and not the status of its players. In the 21st century, "fully professional" means "earn a living". The W-league fails that standard. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:34, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Reference 2 says "This season has seen the Westfield W-League build on its place in the Australian sporting culture and shows the potential for elite female competition in Australia to continue to develop at a professional level". A correct link is [9]Camw (talk) 01:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
But that says nothing like the W-League is fully professional (emphasis on both is and fully). --Mkativerata (talk) 01:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Edit: Sorry, let some non-wikipedia issues cloud my mood and let frustration get the better of me. Removed comment that was uncalled for. Camw (talk) 01:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks User:Camw for the correct link. I think a comment "develop at a professional level" does not verify a professional league, nor does "field this team in such a professional and successful manner" it only shows intent and behaviour.--ClubOranjeT 09:13, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Scottish First Division

Not fully professional, "mostly" or otherwise. Raith and (last season) Ayr are both largely part-time. While Cowdenbeath and Stirling are totally part-time. Queen of the South were p/t as recently as 2007/08 so it's difficult to imagine a time when this division was ever worthy of inclusion here. Eliteimp (talk) 00:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This is completely ignoring the spirit of this guideline, which is to ensure that players in notable leagues are considered as such. The Scottish First Division is one of the oldest and most covered football leagues in the world; that it happens to contain two part-time teams (which it may not, at any given time, and the distinction between pro and semi-pro at this level is very hazy anyway) is irrelevant. Removing it here is counterproductive. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Armenian League

There's no way that the link provided is conclusive for the Armenian league. It just vaguely refers to a professional league in a poorly translated paragraph that doesn't relate to the professional status of the league. matt91486 (talk) 11:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

For that matter, there isn't anything in the Azerbaijan link that really suggests it's fully professional either other than the use of the translated name professional. matt91486 (talk) 11:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Yet this is now officially a guideline, or so I'm told. --WFC-- 21:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I think if it's clear that the source doesn't actually say it's fully professional, it shouldn't be a valid source, naturally enough. matt91486 (talk) 05:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
As a person who added these leagues I'll try to clarify. For Armenia, the problem is that local federation (according to open letter from local fans) pay very little attention to the Internet coverage of national competitions. I could not find any official documents, only this link stating that 2009 season is professional. One more page on the federation website says that there 454 professional footballers in Armenia, which is definitely enough for 8 top-level teams and probably even for some second-tier teams (which are mostly youth teams of the top-level clubs). Otherwise it would be strange to have amateur league with 454 professional players.
For Azerbaijan, I tried to guess from the name. Top two leagues are regulated by Professional Football League, the third league is named AFFA Amateur League. However, there are no official documents available neither at the PFL website not at the AFFA's one. But still, most of the clubs confirm they are professional: Inter Baku (Peşəkar stands for Professional), AZAL Baku, FK Bakı, Gäncä, Khazar Lankaran, MOIK Baku, Mughan Salyan, Neftchi Baku, Gabala, Simurq Zaqatala, Turan Tovuz. Thus, all the teams of Azerbaijan Premier League are professional, so the whole league is professional. It's pretty difficult to find any data for Azerbaijan First Division, so I can't confirm that all teams there are fully professional, but Azerbaijan Premier League is definitely fully professional. Hope these links help clarify the situation — NickK (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Finland

I noticed that someone tried to move it to professional but that reverted. The source used asserting it is not professional is from '05 and mentions the guys make just over 17,000 (not much less than professionals elsewhere but I don't know what the cost of living is). I would be curious to see if this had changed recently, is changing, or if certain teams are professional in the top flight while others are not. Their websites and kits have plenty of sponsorship it looks like and [10] is cute. Might be time to look further into certain teams to see if "Most players are part-timers" still applies. Unless a source says otherwise it of course cannot be changed.Cptnono (talk) 07:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[11] gives a bit more detail. One of the bigger clubs has attendance of around 4,000. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 07:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Interesting read. Wouldn't be surprised if HJK is "professional" now or in the near future. $25k/season and crowds under 5000? Sounds like the "professional" USL leagues here in the states :) .Cptnono (talk) 08:19, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Finland is one of the founding members of European Professional Football Leagues association [12]. --SM (talk) 10:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Which has member leagues that are clearly not professional (eg League of Wales). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

So let me get this straight. Are we saying that the Finnish league should be an exception to WP:ATHLETE? Would this not soon lead to Ireland, Wales, Malta, Cyprus etc. all being exceptions? Spiderone 09:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Who made this arbitrary decision that "level" means League. Could just as easily be taken on a team by team basis. Or on an individual basis. Rather than League by League basis. The League thing is unworkable. Some Leagues can be fully pro one season but not the next. If an amateur team wins promotion does that suddenly make all the players in the League non-notable. If one team signs one amateur does that suddenly make all the players in the League non-notable. DavidDublin (talk) 13:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

And indeed, is it even leagues, rather than divisions within a league, that we are trying to classify? Kevin McE (talk) 16:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, it's written from an American perspective, so it's not really accounting for relegation and larger leagues in its phrasing. matt91486 (talk) 18:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
As far as I know, the Finnish league is still semi-pro. 85.228.208.58 (talk) 11:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Chilean Primera B

According to Article 7 of this league's regulations every team in this league must have a minimum of twelve professional players. Is this enough to make this a fully professional league? Bettia (talk) 12:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems the same applies to Primera A. Bettia (talk) 12:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't have thought it was enough, particularly when read with Article 34, which specifies at least 7 contracted professionals in the starting eleven, which isn't very many at all. The PDF file people used to assess Asian leagues for fully-pro status sets a benchmark of 16 pros, which means that, at least in theory, a team can fill starting eleven and bench with professionals. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm still struggling to see logically how the Bolivian League can be fully pro but the Chilean league cannot. matt91486 (talk) 19:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
It's a bit of a gray area, if you think about it. The rules say that there must be 12 professionals. But the way it is worded makes it look at a squad has to have a minimum of 12 players, and those players have to be professionals. Digirami (talk) 04:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
AGH! Terrible problems here. The source talks about the Primera B (the second division), yet the article lists the Primera A (which has been professional since the 1930s) as not professional. Moreover, just because the rules for the Primera B set a minimum quota of professional players, it doesn't mean that in practice, the league isn't professional (I am not sure of the exact numbers but I know that at least some of the teams are full-time). 85.228.208.58 (talk) 11:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

USL 2

The information I have is that USL 2 clubs are generally only semi-professional. I understand US "soccer" media doesn't happen to use the term semi-professional and simply divides leagues into professional and amateur. For that reason, I would like to see further evidence that USL 2 is full-time, as I don't believe it is. I'm not even sure all the USL 1 clubs were full-time (don't know about the new league though). 85.228.208.58 (talk) 11:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

From the league's own website at [13]: "Now in its 16th season, the USL Second Division is the longest-running professional soccer league in North America". Doesn't seem in any way ambiguous to me. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:53, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
There is an article linked on Yuri Morales which always casts doubt on the fully-pro status of the USL1 and USL2 for me. I have been told that the California Victory was an unusual club and that Morales' experience was atypical, but the article suggests it is not (it says most players in the USL1 had to supplement their incomes with full- or part-time jobs). Also, the comments on the USL page do not indicate if it is semi-pro or fully-pro, just that it is a professional league. Jogurney (talk) 02:21, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
The USL sources are no more or less definitive than we have accepted for other borderline leagues. I certainly believe on looking at things on a case-by-case basis, but I think we should judge the cases similarly. If we take the sources that list the Armenian and Azerbaijani leagues at face value (something I certainly find questionable at best given the phrasing), I don't see why that same courtesy should not be extended to the USL-2, a league which should be easier to find reliable coverage of players for. matt91486 (talk) 04:53, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough, but I think it's quite clear that there are several players in the USL-1 (probably even more in the USL-2) that have to supplement their footballing income with full or part time jobs. I've been told that our "fully-pro" standard means the players don't have other employment (at least during the season). In any case, many USL-1 players will satisfy the GNG, so it may be a moot point. Jogurney (talk) 04:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Maybe easier to find coverage in English language but certainly not easier on a worldwide scale. The real problem we have here is that the word 'professional' doesn't necessarily mean full-time so technically shouldn't merit the league being listed here. However there is also a problem finding sources to determine whether leagues are full-time - it's generally taken as a given in most European countries that the main leagues are full-time, so no-one needs to explicitly state it. This is a problem that isn't going to go away given the guidelines on Original Research.
But what is clear is that USL2 is not a full-time league and neither was USL1. So these must go from the article. If you really want I can do some informal original research and post it on the talk page so we can see which European leagues are part time and which are full-time. 85.228.208.58 (talk) 14:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Should we use common sense?

Veikkausliiga (Finland) is a professional league. According to the latest wage research, 93% of the players are full-time professionals. As said above: "Fully professional is a reasonable shorthand for saying that the league doesn't have jobbing (sh)amateurs." Veikkausliiga doesn't have them. In my opinion it is bumptious and cheeky nitpicking not to include it under the fully pro status, and start to deleting articles of notable Finnish league players only because of that. The newspaper article [14], which is the source for not giving Veikkausliiga a fully pro status, is totally false: "most players" were not part-timers even in 2005! You can verify that by looking the wage research [15] --SM (talk) 03:46, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what you're saying and believe that the wording/rationale of FPL should be reviewed, as common sense should prevail, and most of the major leagues have at some point included amateur players (some in the not too distant past). Eldumpo (talk) 11:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I also agree with SM. The problem here is that we are trying to fit football leagues into categories which are products of a distinctly American system in which leagues are clearly divided between professional and amateur sports, probably because of the system of promotions (which is non-existent in American sports but omnipresent worldwide and especially in Europe). Out of the 50+ top national levels governed by UEFA there are very few which feature amateur players exclusively, while on the other hand there is a comparatively low number of leagues which excpliticly prohibit part-timers. The problem here is also the sourcing, which is very sketchy at the moment - the Finnish league is non-professional even though we have evidence that 93% of its players are indeed pros, the Bosnian league is listed as non-professional simply because its rulebook says that "clubs may use part-time players in league matches", but the Scottish top level is listed as professional even though the very source used to back up that claim features a Scottish coach saying that a team of part-timers could possibly win the league. In the case of Montenegro, the four year old WSC article says that almost all players are actually paid, but are not registered as professionals in order to avoid paying transfer fees when going abroad (and even back then around 40% of all players were registered as pros and one can assume the percentage has gone up since then). The problem is that since the distinction between professional and non-professional sports is so vague in football, it is impossible to confirm whether a league is fully pro or not (the only reliable information which might shed some light on this should be the membership data of FIFPro, professional footballers' trade union - but they don't publish that information and they don't have local chapters in all UEFA countries). This leads to the current situation in which players' articles can get sent to AfD en masse just because there is an undetermined number of amateurs playing in a undetermined number of clubs in the same league (which is even more bizarre in some cases as for example players of Anorthosis of Cyprus did appear in the most elite continental competition but still fail to satisfy our pretty arbitrary standards as we see their league as not fully professional). What would happen if champions of Cyprus, Bosnia or Montenegro actually won the Champions League (which is a theoretical possibility)? Would we still consider them non-notable per WP:ATHLETE, as that is the chief criteria used in AfDs? I say we either accept a blanket criteria for all national top levels plus lower divisions which can be without a doubt confirmed to be fully professional, OR review this list and remove every single league from the fully pro league list that offers even a possibility of part-timers appearing in it (as the number of amateurs may go up as well as down and if the Veikkausliga or SPL are mostly contested by pros today that doesn't mean that it will continue to be that way in 2-3 years). Another and more subtle option would be to try to determine the percentage of amateurs in each league and accept the lowest percentage of pros a league must have in order to be considered fully professional by our standards (e.g. 50%, 70% or something similar). In cases where leagues used to be semi-pro but have turned fully pro dates of this change should be added. This list is the primary guideline for non-soccer patrolling editors when they have to quickly determine whether a newly created stub is worthy of salvaging and therefore its importance is enormous. God only knows how many player articles were deleted because their league ended up in the wrong column, based on some very dubious sourcing. Timbouctou 13:14, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
The Scottish source is talking about winning the second level of Scottish football with a part-time team. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 11:36, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it is worth taking a step back as to what WP:FPL was/is trying to achieve, especially as it is linked from the WP:NSPORT guideline. My view is that the basis of FPL list is a way of determining which leagues are generally regarded as notable enough to allow any players from those leagues to have player articles. However, it is not termed as 'notable football leagues' but uses the term 'fully professional', which is not in any way defined. It would seem better if as a community we came up with a list of notable leagues based on professional status, media coverage, attendances etc, and with consideration of what the sources (e.g. Soccerway, Guardian) say being a key factor in what is regarded as notable. I think this would result in a more honest list of what is regarded as notable. Depending on what you take as your definition of fully professional, it is doubtful that many of the current sources at FPL actually explicity state that given leagues are 'fully professional'.

Taking a more blanket approach as to which top-level leagues should be automatically regarded as notable also has some merit, although whilst I would like to see this for Europe and South America (others no doubt would say this is too inclusionist), it is hard to argue the case for a number of African and Asian countries, which is where the argument returns to community and web views of league notability. Eldumpo (talk) 20:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I would love for us to be able to use common sense in this guideline, believe me. Sadly, if we do, we're going to get taken to task for subjectivity. matt91486 (talk) 20:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you really believe that us taking the listed FPL sources as proving leagues are 'fully professional' is not already subjective? Eldumpo (talk) 21:01, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Of course it is - but it's easily defended to those outside the project who get upset about the number of articles on footballers. We're defining it not so much for people who edit these articles - since I think we are broadly in agreement about what we think ought be included - but those who don't but like to play on AfD. matt91486 (talk) 07:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with trying to tie everything down to a definition of "Fully Professional" gets even more difficult if you look at the historical perspective. Most top leagues started off as amateur or semi-pro; the (English) Football League was amateur when it first started although it was not long before most players were professional, but there were still amateur players in Football League clubs until at least the 1950s. On that basis, any players from that era or earlier could be deleted on the basis that they were not playing in a "Fully Professional League". Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:13, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

So what's the consensus here? Are we going to use common sense or not? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm all for common sense - there's far too much emphasis on sticking to the rules. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, we could do with more editors commenting here though. My view is that common sense is not necessarily working well at the moment - people are using the FPL list as chapter and verse as to whether player articles at AfD should stay or not. Eldumpo (talk) 17:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The list definitely has some value, but I think borderline leagues are always going to be subject to debate. There's no reason why Finnish league players can't be kept simply by meeting the GNG requirements (which shouldn't be too difficult if the league is as notable as claimed). J Mo 101 (talk) 19:49, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
But the whole point of FPL is to serve as a guideline as to whether a player is likely to pass the GNG. Players in the Scottish First Division all receive significant coverage from multiple reliable independent sources on a weekly basis: they should all have articles. And indeed, in some seasons the league is fully professional. Yet it's been struck from this list based on an overly-strict interpretation of the rules. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree with most of what has been said. This list of fully-pro leagues is an attempt to identify those players who are likely to pass the GNG because they play in a league in which most players would have signficant coverage in reliable sources. If the Scottish First Division is such a league, even though not fully-pro, it seems to make sense to collect a list of leagues like it - not just fully-pro leagues (and similarly if a fully-pro league doesn't appear to have many players who pass the GNG, we might not want to include it in such a list). Jogurney (talk) 22:43, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
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