Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 11

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Archive 5 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12 Archive 13 Archive 15

List of York City F.C. players

Could someone please give their opinion on whats going on at List of York City F.C. players. See talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattythewhite (talkcontribs)

See my comment on said talk page. --Jameboy 11:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Think we could do with a guideline on these sorts of lists. Seems like a controversial topic :-) --Jameboy 20:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Advert created for WP:FOOTBALL

As I was monumentally bored after all that FU tagging last night, I created a gif banner ad for WPF for inclusion in the new {{Wikipedia ads}} template that people can choose to whack on their userpages (WPF advert is number 64). If you don't like it and can whip up a better one, then overwrite commons:Image:Qxz-ad64.gif and update the fields. Cheers Foxhill 17:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Very nice, I've added it to my userpage. Dave101talk  18:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
As have I, about time we got one made ;) Mattythewhite 18:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Player's primary nationality

Lot's of people have dual nationality, recently i'm facing disputing with other wikipedians with primary nationality.

Such as player born in Serbia but represent  Montenegro, player born in Croatia and may be ethnic Croats but represent  Bosnia and Herzegovina, and those like Jonathan Santana, Sharbel Touma, Djamel Abdoun, Dutch-Moroccan, Kosovar, German-Turkish, Darío Franco. Matthew_hk tc 19:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It should go by who they've represented at international level. But if they haven't represented anyone, then by their birthplace I guess. Mattythewhite 19:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

How should we handle FRG/GER and YUG/SCG/SRB national team pages?

I posted an update about my work on updating national team templates, and I had a couple of questions. I posted my message under the original thread, but that's now at the top of this talk page, and perhaps not as visible. Please see my questions there. In a nutshell, I'd like feedback on how we should handle links to West Germany national football team (FRG) and Germany national football team (GER), and similarly for Yugoslavia (YUG), Serbia and Montenegro (SCG) and Serbia (SRB). Reply up there or down here as you like! Thanks, Andrwsc 19:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think consensus is that West Germany and Germany are the same team. The 2 articles were recently merged. Kingjeff 19:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, FIFA considers Germany to be a continuation of West Germany and I think the genealogy for Yugoslavia is YUG --> SCG --> SRB. Madcynic 19:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
And so they are! Mea culpa. The last time I had specifically looked was before the merge on June 12. Ok, that situation is clear. Andrwsc 19:56, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I know from the most recent breakup Serbia would be the continuation from the previous Association. Kingjeff 19:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Right, but Yugoslavia national football team and Serbia national football team articles both exist, with no proposal to merge. Should they be? If not, at which point should articles link to the YUG and SRB pages respectively? The YUG (SFRY) → YUG (FRY) → SCG → SRB train of succession is complex, because SFRY and FRY both used "YUG", but FRY was really the same nation as SCG. Andrwsc 20:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's dependant of if it's recognized if they are the same national association. Kingjeff 20:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


Just like USSR and Russia, i don't think we should merge it. So do SFRY and SCG. But yes for SCG and SRB. Matthew_hk tc 20:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a good point. I agree with the comparison to USSR/Russia. Although one is the official "successor" association of the other according to FIFA, there is too much history, and two articles are clearly warranted. However, I'm still trying to understand the rest of your comment. There are four distinct periods to consider:
  1. as Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia — clearly covered in Yugoslavia national football team
  2. as Federal Republic of Yugoslavia — Unclear! FIFA still used "YUG", but this nation was pretty much the same as...
  3. Serbia and Montenegro (SCG)
  4. Serbia — clearly covered in Serbia national football team
So, I think the first and fourth time periods are clear. I think SCG → SRB makes sense (and that is how the current redirect works). But what of the FRY years? Linking to YUG makes sense for how the nation was named & known, and matches the country code. Linking to SRB makes sense if you consider that FRY and SCG were pretty much the same nation, with different names. So which way should we link for #3? Andrwsc 21:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that the SFRY and FRY should like to YUG because the nation was "Yugoslavia" just under slightly different terms. I think SCG should have it's own page as it was another country officially, although the FRY was macde up of Serbia & Montenegro. The way I see it is:

  1. as Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia — leave as Yugoslavia national football team
  2. as Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - should be covered in Yugoslavia national football team
  3. Serbia and Montenegro - new article (albeit brief) for Serbia and Montenegro national football team
  4. Serbia — leave Serbia national football team 81.104.118.2 22:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

debut / début

Is there any guideline stating whether 'debut' or 'début' is preferable, or is either OK? I think either are correct in English (the latter is obviously correct in French also). I have been using 'début', which was later changed to 'debut' by another editor, so it seemed a good time to raise the question. --Jameboy 20:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the anglicised 'debut' is better according to this message just left on my talk page. So I'll stick with that from now on and possibly correct any 'débuts' I happen to come across when doing other edits. --Jameboy 20:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
My browser flags "debut" as a spelling error, preferring "début" (it uses UK English). I prefer "début" myself, as it looks more pretentious, but I don't think it matters either way, and I certainly wouldn't bother using the character listing below the edit window to find the "é". Here's a debut def.  slυмgυм [ ←→ ] 21:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it really matters, as long as its use in the article is consistent - WP:ENGVAR. Dave101talk  21:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, "debut" is the right way: [1]. --Angelo 00:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Football task forces (pt 2)

(See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_10#Creation_of_WikiProject_Football_task_forces)

I think this will be of huge benefit to the Project...unless anyone has any objections I'm going to try and put together a proposal for an England football Task force, which can then be used as a template for the other Task forces (i.e. watch this space!) Paulbrock 13:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think I've got my head round the templates finally!! Can someone check my work at User:Paulbrock/WP_Football_work/Football2? It should add the article to a separate English football category, and also add it to appropriate categories to generate assessment stats. Does anyone have any thoughts on task forces before I give it a go? Paulbrock 21:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Now launched - see Navigation box on main page for the links Paulbrock 11:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Help needed, unless you want to see something quite important deleted...

Okay, we need some help from users who have lots of time to kill doing something extremely tedious (send your regards to User:BigrTex on this one. Most of the football federation logos have been tagged by the user with a fair-use disputed tag such as this one, meaning unless someone either responds accordingly to the tag, has an argument with BigrTex, or goes back and just removes the warnings, the federation football logos that we have dearly created will be deleted. I took care of a few (see an instance of my contributions here) but I really don't have the time right now to go through all of them and make the appropriate corrections. The list of necessary fair use rationale templates starts here (at the Bolivian NT) and goes several pages back in his contributions... I happen to think it's important that we resolve this before a nutty delete-happy admin goes and deletes all of these logos... --Palffy 21:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This may be of use. WATP (talk)(contribs) 21:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
There are a couple of image-Nazis (oops, my bad) working their way through the place. I've been adding fair use rationales as stuff I posted/am interested in gets tagged but its a bit of a pain in the butt to have to go back and do that work when I'd rather be adding new stuff here. I don't think there's any escape unless we get an extension on the 7 day thing and then diligently grind through what needs done. <sigh> While they probably have a point, their approach has been self-righteous and not particularly user friendly. I console myself by occasionally re-reading this essay. Wiggy! 21:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
This happened before - see here, where I mentioned the {{Non-free media rationale}} template.
BigrTex would be a hero to us all if he actually provided the rationale instead.  slυмgυм [ ←→ ] 21:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I made my best to put a few rationales in some of these logos. But now I need a break, because my left hand is aching for good after over a hour of continuous copy-and-paste. If you want to make this job at my place for now, the images marked with (top) on this page are very likely to be tagged as disputed fair-use. A short comment: these users play things this way rather than adding rationales themselves solely because they use scripts for marking images as disputed. --Angelo 23:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Have FU tagged 150-60 tonight.. more when I can be bothered I think. Foxhill 00:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Wow. --Angelo 00:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I've cleared all non-orphaned footy team and competition logos out of Category:Disputed non-free images and Category:Images with no fair use rationale as far as I can gather. However, this is by no means all - there is a large number still tagged for deletion elsewhere and a huge amount that haven't been tagged yet. Soooo if you are browsing around articles, check for FU and copyright on everything. There is a moratorium on deletions at least until 2007-07-01 as there is a huge stink being kicked up all over the place (not just with sports logos) (see for example Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/FURG). I don't think there is any way that a bot can be programmed to notify Projects of an image's nomination for speedy deletion, which is a bugger as most of these logo's were uploaded over a year ago by users that are now dormant. Anyway, if you see any non-tagged - help us all by providing a Fair Use Rationale. Cheers Foxhill 20:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Dutch football

I have proposed creating a new daughter project of WikiProject Football: WikiProject Dutch football, about (surprise) football in the Netherlands. The proposal, for those who are interested, is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Dutch football. AecisBrievenbus 22:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As I have been creating a task force structure, I've included your proposal - homepage now available at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Football/Holland task force. Paulbrock 11:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Stub-Class articles

Here are, up until this point, 66 Football-related articles that are just stubs. Take a look at the list and take a few on if you want to. Kingjeff 23:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I see your 66 and raise you several thousand ;-) In all seriousness though, if the current tally at WP:WPFA is representative of football articles as a whole, two thirds of articles about the sport are stubs, and an organised effort to expand the neediest areas might be worthwhile. If anyone knows about football outside Europe or Anglophone countries, pretty much every top division club in Africa and Asia is a substub in need of attention. Oldelpaso 11:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I have no idea what you're talking about. You're either interested in m category or you're not. Kingjeff 15:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
He was only talking about all the other stubs... Mattythewhite 15:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
He's comparing a Stub-Class category with for a task force with one for an entire project. So, it's basically comparing apples and oranges. Kingjeff 15:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
If you feel I'm belittling your work on Munich related articles, let me reassure you that I mean no such thing. Your comment reminded me of all the footy-club-stubs I saw when I was doing some article assessment recently, and had intended to mention somewhere but forgot, thats all. Merely a playful comment followed by a more serious one on a related topic, no slight on any group of articles was intended. Oldelpaso 15:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Football squad

Whats up with the football squads on clubs articles? Mattythewhite 18:36, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Example, s'il vous plaît. - Dudesleeper · Talk 18:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Its okay now.. the second half of the squads were dodgy. But they're okay now.. Mattythewhite 18:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Template:Football squad mid was vandalised.  slυмgυм [ ←→ ] 18:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

External links

Just wanted to check something on here. On the Copa América 2007 article someone keeps adding this link - http://www.univision.com/contentroot/uol/30deportes/content/jhtml/copa_america/NOMETA_partidosEnVivo.jhtml which they add the line that it has live streaming of the matches. The latest user to have added it, they only have two edits, both of them being adding this link. I seem to recall reading somewhere (though I may well be wrong) that links to sites like this aren't allowed, is that correct? Thanks. ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 18:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Renaming European Cup Competition articles

Just to give a heads up that a discussion is currently ongoing at Talk:UEFA European Football Championship#Requested move for a consensus for renaming post 1996 Euro Cup articles from e.g. [[2000 UEFA European Football Championship]] to [[UEFA Euro 2000]], seems to have caused a mini-move war. Comments welcome as usual. Foxhill 22:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Football Task Forces

I've noticed that there are a lot of WikiProjects related to football for a single nation. How about we convert them to Task Forces for WikiProject Football? We can incorporate these task forces into the template for WikiProject Football which would give more exposure to these projects. Kingjeff 19:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, I've been working on a TaskForce structure for WP Football, starting with England and Holland (following the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Dutch_football). Thoughts welcome, though I suspect I might just have to be bold and give it a whirl...Paulbrock 00:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

It also might be good to run it jointly with a country WikiProject and WikiProject Football. Kingjeff 00:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

As stated in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces, you can make a task force as child of two projects, with its main subpage being located arbitrarily under one of the parent projects (I would suggest to use this one). For existing nationwide football projects, you need to be bold, many of them are actually inactive. --Angelo 00:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

There is also the issue of adding these Task Forces to the templates of each project. Kingjeff 00:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)]]

The 1st two task forces have launched! Homepages now available at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Football/England task force and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Football/Netherlands task force. Paulbrock 11:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

My Football League: Season-by-Season Task Force is pretty much dead. You can add FC Bayern Munich Task Force. I've created 8 steps to a good footballers' article. I got the concepts from WikiProject Biography. Kingjeff 15:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

How about turning the other existing football-related WPs into taskforces? --Angelo 22:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what should be done. Kingjeff 02:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Football assessment rating

On the football assessment criteria, does the club have to currently match it to be included. E.g., does a club have to currently have "international and top-level players and managers; mid-level leagues" to be included, or is it to have done so in the past? Mattythewhite 16:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can barely understand what you mean. In any case, club importance is clearly stated in the grading scheme, regardless of their players' (and managers') importance. --Angelo 16:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Err.. I'll give an example of what I mean. What should the York City importance rating be? Its currently at Low, but it meets the Mid criteria in that they have had "international" players, and have played in a mid-level league.. but I'm just not quite clear on the criteria. Mattythewhite 16:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
The club criteria is "Teams with at least nationwide notability". "International and top-level players and managers" is criteria for bio articles. Perhaps this could be re-worded to make it clearer? Dave101talk  16:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I've tended to interpret it (for England) as High=Champs league teams, Mid=Other prem through to League 2, Low = non-league for clubs. I'd back York City's low on that basis. (I think the 'mid-level leagues' thing refers to the importance of the league's article)
Preston North End, Leeds United, and Nottingham Forest have all seen better days but in terms of importance I'd say current team status is more important. (I'd also point out that as long as the importance ratings are roughly correct that's fine, it's not a precise science) Paulbrock 17:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Current status may be more important, but that doesn't mean historical importance isn't important at all. I think clubs that spent many decades in the Football League but have slipped down recently should be treated as equally important to a club that was virtually unknown for most of its history, but has suddenly got promoted to the league, e.g. Cheltenham. If we're only going by current importance, then Sunderland should definitely be mid. Marky-Son 18:08, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

To me, Sunderland is mid, they do not have such a worldwide notability, as well as Preston. Leeds and (especially) Nottingham Forest are more debatable, as they are two teams which experienced very successful times at the European level. Personally I marked several Italian teams, classifying a very few ones (AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, AS Roma) as high-importance, all other Serie A and Serie B teams, plus major Serie C1 and a very few Serie C2 ones, as mid-importance, and all the other as low-importance. --Angelo 18:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I created Liverpool F.C. Reserves as an article last year because I believed that the information about the reserve team was notable in its own right, but not notable enough to clutter the main article. It therefore merited a subsidary article, in the same way as History of Liverpool F.C. has its own article. Now, I know there are some people who don't approve of having an article for reserves teams at all, hence the previous heated afd, although given that there is now an Arsenal F.C. Reserves article along similar lines, perhaps attitudes have shifted. However, since that time, the decision was made (primarily by people who wanted to delete the article in the first place), that the article should at the very least be merged with the Liverpool F.C. Academy article. The result is an article that simply doesn't hang together; although there is obviously a relationship between the Academy and the players it trains and the Reserve Team itself, the two entities are simply not the same, having different staffing, etc., compete in different tournaments, etc. In my view, this has been a very unsatisfactory compromise. Given that many high schools now apparently merit their own articles, I would have thought that the Academy was notable enough to have an article in its own right, and certainly should not confuse what is a useful article about the Reserve team, its history and personnel. I know that this is likely to open a can of worms, but I really would like to see some kind of consensus about this. Robotforaday 17:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it works fine. It needs a preamble at the beginning, to bind the two sections together a bit more, but as a joint article it makes sense, it's two stages of the same setup. ArtVandelay13 17:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Fernando Torres

Fernando Torres has not completed his move to Liverpool, has he? Raymond Cruise seems to think so, even though the evidence he gives contradicts his belief. Can someone please assure me I'm not a vandal. Mattythewhite 17:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Not yet, although he has passed his medical. ArtVandelay13 18:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This sort of edit war is the result of using Wikipedia as a news service - perhaps you should all wait until a player move is finalised before reporting it in the player's article. Daemonic Kangaroo 18:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

(attempt at humour) We could always make Itsotp a guideline - Foxhill 18:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Umm, Kangaroo, I think you're preaching to the converted here, so I don't know who that "you should all wait" is directed to. Mattythewhite (and others) seem to be in favour of waiting until the thing actually happens, but other users seem intent on using wikipedia, as you say, as a news service. Trouble is, they won't read this, or in fact any discussion on wikipedia. This kind of thing always happens, there are some people whose sole contribution to wikipedia it to be "first in" with this kind of news, even if that means being premature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robotforaday (talkcontribs)
Revert all Torres-related transfer claims and rumours at sight until the move is finally completed and officially announced on the club website. I've had a similar issue with David Suazo, with several guys (especially IP users) adding him to Inter, then to Milan, and then back to Inter. --Angelo 18:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Torres is being added to the Liverpool squad every five minutes at the moment. I find it hard to understand the mentality that makes people want to add transfers before they're confirmed, sometimes after the earliest speculation. Transfer windows are a trying time on WP:WPF! ArtVandelay13 19:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, ask for semiprotection then. It's the easiest and most reasonable thing you can do. --Angelo 20:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)Okay, forget it, it's already been semiprotected. :) I added a sharper and stronger disclaimer at the top of the squad section. By the way, I think every single new club signing should be reliably sourced, that's how I partially solved the issue for the Italian Serie A clubs. --Angelo 20:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty incredible how people keeps on adding Torres without citing any official statement by Liverpool. I am going to propose a 24-hour full protection for Liverpool F.C., if you agree with it. --Angelo 00:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge suggest by User:Mxcatania

User:Mxcatania suggested merge all U-21/Olympic team in to part of senior team page. I think we should discuss here or speedy end it. Matthew_hk tc 17:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

A discussion has started at Talk:Germany national under-21 football team.  slυмgυм [ ←→ ] 18:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

There is already 8 against the Germany merger. How much more should we wait? Kingjeff 04:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree on the terms of the votation. Go ahead if you want. Mxcatania 13:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Italian task force

As per related discussion (here and in the old WP talkpage), the Italian Football WP has turned into a task force, whose mainpage is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Italy task force. Do you have any idea about what to do with the old Italian Football WP pages and templates? --Angelo 20:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

As a starter, suggest you at least have a link from Italy task force to Italian Football WP, similar to what I've done with the USA and Canada task force. Migrate and archive the talk page? Dunno about the templates! Paulbrock 19:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Talkpage might be left where they are now as well, as they just reflect the state of hiatus within the former WP (33 paragraphs in a year, many of them without an answer). I would consider deleting the templates (they are quite useless right now). --Angelo 19:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Stadium naming convention

Hi. Don't know if this has been discussed before (couldn't find it in the archives), but I was wondering whether there was a standard for stadium naming. I've just moved Saunders Honda Stadium to Deva Stadium on the basis of WP:COMMONNAME (I have never heard it referred to by the sponsor's name even though it appears to have been that way since 2004).

Should stadium articles be at their "proper name" or their sponsorship name? In some cases the stadium has never had a proper name (such as Doncaster's Keepmoat Stadium), but in several others it does. League One's stadium list looks very strange as it includes:

If there is as yet no standard, I am personally inclined to go with the proper name based on common use (who calls Brisbane Road the Matchroom Stadium except the stadium announcer!) .

Thoughts? Number 57 13:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Well at one point the norm when naming the stadium to what road it was in or the place. My personal view would be to stick to that naming convention. Govvy 14:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


For the article name, the sponsor's name is used. During FIFA tournaments, we use official name. Kingjeff 14:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Use the standard/common name for the article name, noting in the text the fact that it is officially named after a transitory sponsor. This is the way league articles are treated, and I see no need for stadia to be different. - fchd 16:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

But what I'm saying is that the wikilink for lets say BMO Field would be BMO Field|National Soccer Stadium. This link would recognize the article name which would be the common name and it also recognizes the official name when the common name is not the official name. Kingjeff 16:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I still think the article itself should be at the common name. In many cases absolutely no-one uses the sponsor name (as in the case of Brisbane Road for example). Also I don't like the idea of using sponsors names on Wikipedia - it seems like advertising by the back door... Number 57 17:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

But the National Soccer Stadium is what we use to name BMO Field during in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup article. The article itself would be still named BMO Field. If you look at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, You should see how stadium names are done during International soccer tournaments for both FIFA and UEFA. Kingjeff 19:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand your argument. It wouldn't have been verh helpful to have all the stadium articles named "Fifa World Cup Stadium, wherever". Why "hide" the sponsor name in a wikilink when you can just have a direct link to the real name of the stadium rather than the name some company has given it for a couple of years? Number 57 19:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Because the sponsors name is not the current name of the stadium. BMO Field is called National Soccer Stadium right now. Kingjeff 19:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Now I understand, but my original point was not about renaming stadiums during tournaments. It is about stadiums in England which for a long time have gone by a certain name, but then in the last couple of years have adopted a sponsor name (to boost clubs' incomes). In these cases I believe they should continue to be listed in Wikipedia under their non-sponsor name. Number 57 19:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Just follow the WP:COMMONNAME standards. In short, use the commonest name used by people to identify the venue, forgetting issues related to sponsorship names vs "official" ones, and all the other stuff. --Angelo 19:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, that basically means non-sponsorship names in most cases. Number 57 19:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to butt in, to say that I think the way the Deva Stadium is how football grounds (stadiums) with sponsors names should be in the UK as that is relevant to this country. The one that seems to be different of course is Arsenals Emirates Stadium. The unofficial name when it was being built being Ashburton Grove, but there is a note in the Infobox stating, "Arsenal stadium (by UEFA)" which I am presuming means that UEFA refer to it as Arsenal Stadium. However, I doubt anyone outside of UEFA calls it that. ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 23:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Similar topics has been brought on before without any real results, if any of you are interested to see what we've been discussing, here is the link to the archived discussion. Martin tamb 06:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

How to find articles based upon the assessment ratings?

Hi all, I was just looking at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Assessment#Current status table, and it occurred to me that it would be good if you could click on the numbers listed in it. For example, say I have some time on my hands and look at that table and see that there are 8 stub-level High importance articles, it would be useful if i could click on the "8" and get a list of those articles, so I can decide what I want to spend some time on. I can't see myself being bothered to check through all 172 High importance articles to find the 8. Can anyone fix this? aLii 11:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, it would be a nice feature, however I think it is technically impossible. That list of articles would actually be an intersection of two article sets represented by their correspondent categories (in your example, Stub-class and high-importance). However the MediaWiki software does not support the intersection of two or more category sets. --Angelo 11:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
It's a little fiddly,but you can find articles sorted by both importance and quality using the automatically generated worklist.Paulbrock 12:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know what this article is for and more importantly whether it should perhaps be nominated for deletion. Firstly it is inaccurate anyway as it says it is a list of matches taking place in the Americas, yet the title is "North American Summer of soccer". So the title is for a start at best, misleading. And it just appears to me anyway, to be a list of indiscrimate information that serves no purpose. Apart from which no results have been added for any matches after 8th June. Anyone? ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 01:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it should. Wikipedia is not a random list of information. Kingjeff 03:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

It looks like an abandoned duplication of material properly tabulated on 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup, Copa América 2007, and 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason at all for match results from those three tournaments to be repeated and combined on this list. Feel free to WP:PROD it, and if contested, put it up for WP:AFD. Andrwsc 04:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Please be on the look out for the above name appearing in football articles. Its creator has been indefinitely blocked under the usernames Dannyacevski and Vn5ltrcalais for creating hoax articles about himself, but one of his sockpuppets (58.175.240.226) hasn't yet met the same fate. He'll like return under another name or IP. - Dudesleeper · Talk 11:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Lists of transfers

I am seriously considering nominating List of Italian football transfers 2007-08 for deletion. This list is potentially very long, almost impossible to fully verify and source, and an indiscriminate collection of information. Thoughts? --Angelo 17:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It can't become too long, if we go by the "only moves from Serie A and Serie B are listed" criteria (which is odd in and of itself). - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, it would be about 42 teams, each of these signing not less than 6-7 players; this would make a list of at least 300 players, not including players sold to minor and foreign leagues. --Angelo 23:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't really see how this can be managed. I am not particularly knowledgable about Italian football, but I've already spotted one transfer missed. Dave101talk  12:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I've nominated it for deletion here. MaxSem 12:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Should not be deleted. Does not fall under indiscriminate as explained on that article. English transfer articles have gotten free passes for the years they have them. The Italian transfer page from last season was never put up for deletion. Ridiculous nomination. Same thing posted on the deletion page. Bigdottawa 00:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


See another page Tottenham Hotspur F.C. Transfers - not the best idea in my opinion. Punkmorten 20:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

AfD'd. I'm slightly less strongly opposed to that type of article than ones sorted by league and season, it'll be interesting to see the debate. WATP (talk)(contribs) 20:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

"A legend"

I seem to have taken this out of a lot of articles recently. Should we ever use it? --John 18:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I think not. In my opinion, describing someone (or something?) as a 'legend' is a subjective assessment and not the rendering of a fact. --Malcolmxl5 23:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Bit of a weasel word, in my opinion. Dave101talk  10:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
As any non-referenced uses would be highly contentious - and any flat-out 'the sun shines out of his backside' comments would just be POV - It's a phrase I usually only ever use in a sentence such as 'They are considered a legend amongst <team>s supporters' with a decent reference. Always best to qualify with 'so-and-so call them a legend' to avoid the POV issues. I find that official club histories or sources such as Huddersfield Town F.C. - The Fans' Favourites or Swindon Town Football Club 100 Greats to be adequate for this. Any other use of such blatant POV/Weasel Words are worth removing on sight or tagging the article for cleanup. Foxhill 19:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I think you're overreacting. - Dudesleeper · Talk 16:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

...currently playing for club in division

I've noticed there's a tendency for editors to include a club's division when mentioning a player's current employer. I'd like to suggest not doing this, since nobody's likely to update each player's article if that club changes division at the end of the season. It's just creating more work for people. - Dudesleeper · Talk 21:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The wikilink to the club is enough. ArtVandelay13 21:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, it just provides extra hassle. What I do like doing, though, is stating in any transfer something like this: "In July 2007 Robson moved to League One side Millwall on a two year contract." Because then the reader quickly gets an idea of what level they moved to, which in the future would be hard to work out from browsing the club article, should they be promoted/relegated. HornetMike 20:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a squabble going on as to whether it is appropriate to include a detailed history of the earlier club Scarborough F.C. or whether the article on the new club should start with a description of the liquidation of the old as context, but leave other parts of the history to the article of the old club. I am in the latter camp but my edits are being determinedly reverted by a single editor. In other, recent, cases the histories have been kept separate - see A.F.C. Telford United and A.F.C. Hornchurch. I should welcome views and participation in a straw poll at Talk:Scarborough Athletic F.C.#History - straw poll. BlueValour 15:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this article should be deeply revised: this is the latest proof of a dangerous tendency to include as many information as possible in team squads, as well as other non-notable information. Do friendly matches deserve to be mentioned in an article? I think no. Let me know your opinion. --Angelo 17:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that only competitive matches should be listed. Bridgeplayer 18:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, to be honest I think all club season articles are completely useless. What do they contain? Extra squad detail - we deleted separate squad articles for Barcelona or whoever the other day, statistics on players can be found in their article. The squad for that particular season - excessive info, again, we can tell when a player was at a club from their own article. Transfers, ditto (we've also got season pages for them) Match scores - excessive statistical information for that level of competition, we've deleted results pages by month before. Match reports - even more excessive! (also prone to POV) I'd love to delete them, but what with American Football editors loving them, and the reason for Man City Seasons failing FLC the other day being lack of individualised season articles, I can't see any way of getting rid of them, despite their huge flaws. HornetMike 20:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Players on loan: which club?

If Player A (for example Juan Román Riquelme) is on loan from club B (for example Villareal CF) to club C (for example Boca Juniors), is he considered to be on club B or C? It feels like he's still on club B. eae 19:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, in the players infobox, both are mentioned usually. And they are on the loan teams squad template and hidden on the contracted club. Mattythewhite 19:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
What Matt said. Normally I find on the current club field it's best to put it thus:

Lymington and New Milton
on loan from Real Madrid HornetMike 20:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Football national team template replacement complete

I have replaced virtually all instances of the old national team templates (such as Template:BRAf) with the equivalent replacement using the new {{fb}}, {{fb-rt}}, {{fbw}} and {{fbw-rt}} templates. (Only a small handful of archived talk pages were left alone.) I have just finished deleting all the old templates. I also created a couple of new templates — {{fb-big}} and {{fbw-big}} — that I've used to greatly simplify the formatting of the all-time results tables on several tournament articles. I'm sure my work has touched upon many of the articles in project members' watchlists, so you can see the effect of these changes. I hope you all agree it was helpful! Thanks, Andrwsc 00:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Are friendly pre-season tournaments notable? To me they're not, especially when they have no history at all to be mentioned. Please discuss it here. --Angelo 11:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

History section in club articles

Some club articles have continuous prose for their history sections (e.g. Arsenal F.C.), whereas others have the history split into sub-sections (Manchester United F.C.). Which is generally preferred? I am currently writing a history section for Stoke City F.C., but I wasn't sure which style to adopt. Dave101talk  11:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Arsenal is a Featured Article, whereas Manchester United is not. Does that answer your question? aLii 13:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Not really, because Sheffield Wednesday F.C. has sub-sections but it is also a Featured Article. Dave101talk  14:29, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
The key consideration is that the history section in the main article should be a reasonably compact summary (with a longer version as a seperate article if required). I would say that the more sub-sections there are, the longer the history section is likely to become. So I'd go for continuous prose. Robotforaday 14:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Morecambe FC

Just a quick note: Following Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scott Davies (English footballer) I have restored previously-deleted articles of Morecambe FC players. I only restored the articles about players who are included in the current squad, of course. The players in question are: Paul Lloyd, Wayne Curtis, Garry Hunter and Adam Yates. Punkmorten 13:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Futsal Players

Ben Watson (football player) is currently at Grays Athletic. However he does not meet the criteria needed for an article (basically he hasn't made a league appearance). However, he has represented England's national futsal team on a number of occasions, does this warrant him to have an article?

Jimbo online 17:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably not as futsal is a relatively minor sport in this country but he (and other members of the England futsal squad) could be included appropriately in the Futsal in England article. Any other views anyone? --Malcolmxl5 23:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Time saving template

I am proposing a template that will save time for Editrs, in stead of typing [[England national football team|England]] to get England i am proposing only typing {{Nat|Scotland}} to get Scotland Chaza1000 18:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

You can already do this with {{nft}} where you type {{subst:nft|Scotland}} to get [[Scotland national football team|Scotland]] Foxhill 19:08, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Are we supposed to use them? I its like using {{fc|York City}}, which we're supposed to be not using, instead typing it out in full (I think). Mattythewhite 19:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I remember being encouraged to subst: the fc template to integrate it into the article. The only real difference for editors is that once subst'd the link would appear as [[York City F.C.|York City]] whereas unsubst'd it would be {{fc|York City}}. There may have been talk about server overheads as well. I still use it as {{subst:fc|Team}} and {{subst:afc|Team}} Foxhill 19:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive8#fc was the last comment on these templates recommending the use of subst'ing Foxhill 19:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Infobox standards

Italicisation of players' names shouldn't bother me, but, since the majority of player articles don't adhere to this format, it does. Is it worth bringing these articles into line? - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

PlayerHistory.com

does anybody have use of this site?... it basically has a complation of many indepth player history in terms of stats. i was looking to use it for Giuseppe Cavanna article, but it only reveals some of the stats unless you are a paid member of it[2]--SalvoCalcio 23:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I just use it as a reference for players' middle names. In my opinion it contains enough basic information for non-subscribers. - Dudesleeper · Talk 11:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Cavanna's PlayerHistory.com profile states he made his international debut in 1931, but his article gives 1934. - Dudesleeper · Talk 11:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes the national appearances and goals were wrong. Matthew_hk tc 10:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Football article improvement drive

Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Article improvement drive needs updating. The deadlines on all four noms have passed, one more than a month ago. It seems that one nom has passed, the list of men's national football (soccer) teams. AecisBrievenbus 22:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:FIFA World Cup squads

Does anyone think Template:FIFA World Cup squads is a bit excessive, please see FIFA World Cup article and see the templates at the bottom. I think the box is becoming too large and there are already templates that have links to each World Cup editions, I don't see the point in adding another templates to links the squads specifically. What do you guys think about this? Martin tamb 00:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Could someone have a look at this article which I just discovered? Is it a hoax or is it real? It is difficult to tell as it is written in very poor English and with totally irrelevant wiki links. There is also this Template:RFS Rebelde Squad which if this is a hoax, then needs looking at too. If this is real then it needs a complete re-write. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The creator's now-blanked talk page doesn't instill confidence. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a hoax or an attack (CSD G10). The only google hits for aaron calmet are to this article. The club name, "Quakekaikano (Quake y Kaik)", reminds me of the ethnic slur kyke. Presumably this Aaron Calmet is a Jewish boy who likes to play Quake. AecisBrievenbus 22:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I have nominated the article for speedy deletion per G1 (nonsense), G10 (attack) and A7 (non-notability). AecisBrievenbus 22:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Cheers for that, just to add though there is also the squad template which if this is a hoax and it certainly looks like one, perhaps shoudl also be included for deletion? ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Both have been deleted. Thanks for the heads-up. AecisBrievenbus 18:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Rebelde referred to the Mexican telenovela Rebelde, btw. AecisBrievenbus 18:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

European football records

I have a content dispute with another editor over the inclusion of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in the European football records article. If you could have a look, would be appreciated. Talk: European football records BestEditorEver 07:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but if the Fairs Cup is not officially recognised, then it shouldn't be listed in with the UEFA Cup. Perhaps a seperate section could be made to highlight Fairs Cup records, and explain that it isn't officially recognized (with a reference). aLii 08:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
There's still a standstill. If some of you would like to comment on the discussions here and here, then by all means, go go go. -- BestEditorEver 11:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Goal keeper info boxes

Would it not be better to have, for goal keepers - instead of a "goals" column, to have a cleansheet column, seeing as this is more notable for a Goalkeeper to be able to achieve Chaza1000 17:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Goalkeepers do score. Not often, but they do in some rare cases. And theres no real resources for clean sheets. Mattythewhite 17:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Agree. It is impossible. Punkmorten 12:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Nationality of players in Current Squad sections

What is the criterion for the nationality of football players in Current Squad sections? I just came across Associação Académica de Coimbra - O.A.F.#Current squad, which lists players by their place. Lionel Medeiros for instance, a Portuguese player born in France, is listed as a French player, while he is Portuguese. Filipe Teixeira was born in France as well, but is listed as Portuguese. I think this is very confusing. I think we should use the football licence instead of place of birth. If the criterion of Académica de Coimbra were to be used elsewhere, Deco for instance would be listed as a Brazilian football player, even though he plays for the Portugal national football team. AecisBrievenbus 22:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. Fix them, otherwise someone might have the brilliant idea of defining Claudio Gentile as a Libyan (well, they actually did it on Juventus F.C., I am serious!). --Angelo 22:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
This comes up a lot. A player's primary nationality is the country that he has represented at the highest international level, or most recently. With uncapped players, their nationality is usually listed, it's not as simple as the country they were born in. ArtVandelay13 22:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I've had a similar discussion before about Daniël Rijaard, who is Dutch, but played for the Netherlands Antilles national football team (for which he qualified through his parents). Quincy Owusu-Abeyie is like this as well: he holds dual citizenship iirc, has represented Dutch national youth teams and has requested permission from FIFA to represent Ghana instead. AecisBrievenbus 23:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
In the context of articles about football, it seems sensible that flag icons should represent the country that the player represents at international level rather than country of birth. --Malcolmxl5 23:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
In terms of categories, should we be using (in the case of Bill Perry, for example) Category:South African soccer players (nation of birth) and Category:English footballers (nation represented in football)? - Dudesleeper · Talk 06:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, there's no problem acknowledging dual nationalities with categories (and other things). The issue is when you have to list players by only one nationality, e.g. the squad lists. ArtVandelay13 13:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
But it should not be acknowledged that way. If he never represented South Africa he is not a South African soccer player, just a person of South African descent. In this case he would go in Category:British people of South African descent. Punkmorten 17:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I think that's generally true, but Perry came to England when he was 19, and lots of other South Africans who represented England came much later - they represented England because of the sanctions against SA. If someone changes nationality in adulthood, I don't see why this dual nationality shouldn't be listed. ArtVandelay13 19:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
A similar discussion could be held about for instance Moroccan-Dutch football players. Almost all of them were born in the Netherlands and they all hold dual citizenship. I think almost all of them play under a Dutch licence, while some have chosen to represent Morocco (e.g. Bouaouzan, Diba, Sinouh), some have chosen to represent the Netherlands (Afellay, Aissati, Bakkal, Boulahrouz) and Driss Boussatta has represented both the Netherlands and Morocco. I think that those players who represent Morocco should be listed with the Moroccan flag in Current Squad sections, but can be categorized as Dutch football players. AecisBrievenbus 22:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Not if they never represented the Netherlands. In that case they should be Moroccan footballers and Moroccan-Dutch people. Punkmorten 12:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I also started a section above, Player's primary nationality. per wikipedia policy (somewhere in not excessive use flag), people born place may not equal to their nationality. It may cause by his mother went to another nation for short term job, or visit. I think the primary rule is use their national team, and then where he primary spent his childhood (but difficult for some African players spent their youth football outside), and then born place, and then ethnicity. But it is difficult for BIH people/Croats/Serbs. For Jimmy Bullard and Anthony da Silva (Tony), I will list them for English and Portuguese respectively, latter started his career at Portugal, not capped by Frence, his father from Portugal. Matthew_hk tc 10:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

fixtures and result

User Eodw (talk) has been making individual pages for national football team's fixtures and results. Anyone know how to propose a mass merge for these articles? -- BestEditorEver 18:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather a mass speedy delete, they're CSD A7 at my eyes. --Angelo 19:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Could work, although deleting seems cruel to what looks like informative and good-faith edits. If I left a request on his talk page to merge the articles, would I be correct in stating that the fixtures and results belong on the national football team articles themselves? -- BestEditorEver 11:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
We have deleted results pages before. This information has no place in Wikipedia at all. Punkmorten 12:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

David Beckham

It's all kicking off (no pun intended) at Talk:David Beckham. England v US war over whether UK English or US English is appropriate for the article following Becks' move Stateside. Join in at your peril... Paulbrock 23:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Kids! I have told them to be civil!! --Malcolmxl5 00:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be little point trying to discuss it on there as has been said it seems to mostly be kids. I saw some of when it started and tried to reason with one of them, but all I got was, Wikipedia is an American project, he is playing in America and he should be called a soccer player when he is here. And all the usual rubbish about how gay football (soccer) is. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 01:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

This article was recently very briefly discussed when one chant was proposed for deletion. I am just wondering if anyone would have any objections if later today I make a start at trying to sort the article out? In doing so, much of the content is either going to have to be removed, or at least moved to the talk page (or hidden maybe?) simply because it is unsourced. I will work on getting some sources, though that in itself could prove difficult. And I thought it best to add the "in use" tag. Any objections, ideas? cheers. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 15:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely needs a good sorting out. Some of the (UK) broadsheets occasionally dip into "Where did chant x originate?" so that may be a source, but I suspect the sources meeting WP:RS will be very limited. Paulbrock 16:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Giuly and AS Roma

Several people are continuously adding Ludovic Giuly to AS Roma's roster despite lack of any official announcement by the club. Could you please revert the latest adding, as I am a bit concerned about not breaking the 3RR? Thanks in advance.

Secondly, have a look at AS Roma 2007-08. These articles are proliferating, I think we should stop them all as soon as possible. --Angelo 16:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

With regard to Ludovic Giuly, when googled I couldn't find anything to confirm he is definitely going to AS Roma. However, this article dated 14th July, suggests that he won't be signing for Roma -No Roma In Giuly's Future. Is that correct? ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

He will probably join AS Roma, as he is already in Rome and passed a medical test. But he is still not an AS Roma player. --Angelo 16:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah right so similar to numerous other situations where people add players to clubs before they sign. The only thing then of course, is that the section heading says "confirmed signings for the 2007-08 season"? ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
There is actually also a disclaimer suggesting not to include unconfirmed signings. But nobody really seems to care about it. --Angelo 16:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Indeed and just after I posted the above, I had a look on the article and it quite clearly states not to add "new players before their signing is officially announced by the club". So on that basis, and of course because the user adding him has provided no source, I have reverted it again. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Finally made official by AS Roma. In any case, please have a look at AS Roma 2007-08, the latest of a long series of such articles (with F.C. Internazionale Milano 2007-08 being probably the craziest one). I'd like to share some thought about what to do to let these articles look a bit more encyclopedic. --Angelo 17:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Zac Beda

I found this article, Zac Beda, this afternoon when browsing a Blackpool FC fan message board where some fans took great delight in having vandalised the article. I have reverted the vandalism. Unfortunately though, since then they have vandalised it again and would appear to wish to continue doing so, calling it "great fun".

He appears to be a youth team player who presumably fails notability. As I haven't proposed any articles for deletion before, could someone please have a look at the article and let me know if I have done it right? thanks. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 17:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Broadcasters

I think that for the Broadcasters we should have a seperate article for each tournament, and each Edititon (trial on Premier League 07-08 works) Chaza93 19:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Strongly, strongly disagree. Lists of broadcasters of TV programs have been repeatedly removed via AfD as unencyclopaedic, and I can't how how broadcasters of sport events is any more so. - fchd 20:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Ooof, yeah, awful idea. Seeing as the Premiership gets a lot of attention I suppose there might be room for some kind of Premiership media coverage article, in which some of this could be incorporated, but season by season/separate tournament articles? No way. HornetMike 21:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Club by club subheadings in player articles

A contributor recently reformatted the article on Boudewijn Zenden to include subheadings on each of his stints at various clubs - so a seperate section for PSV, Barcelona, and so on. Now, I'm not against this, and can see that from a certain perspective it makes sense. I went to look at the Manual of Style to see where the project stood on these subheadings, but this level of detail doesn't seem to be something anticipated, so really I'm interested in finding out, should we be working towards continuous prose in player biographies, or are subheadings like this the way forward? Robotforaday 13:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Generally I'm against the overuse of subheadings, but in some cases it aids the readability of an article. Different sub-headings for stints at different clubs seems perfectly fine to me too. One thing that I prefer not to see is a seperate section for International career as then you get sequencing problems — it's harder to tell where in their career each international milestone came. aLii 15:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this works for long articles, but right now we have quite a few articles being edited with only one line per sub-heading (Stuart Beavon for example). This seems a little ridiculous to me. WikiGull 16:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Ebbsfleet & Gravesend categories

Should Category:Gravesend & Northfleet F.C. players and Category:Ebbsfleet United F.C. players be merged? Considering they're the same club.. Mattythewhite 10:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely - it's the still the same entity regardless of the name change. Number 57 10:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Itsotp - notable or not?

Just wondering, does anyone think Itsotp is really worth an article?

The article says it's an acronym probably originating on Aston Villa message boards. As I'd never heard of it I googled for it, and according to Google it ONLY appears on Aston Villa messageboards (and Wikipedia). I wouldn't have thought that was enough to make it notable. Struway2 | Talk 12:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I've certainly never heard it used by anyone and can't see how it merits an article. It would be like having an article on Some bloke down Atomics, which is a running joke on the Gillingham boards. Bin it, I say ChrisTheDude 12:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Never heard of it. I would guess it's of extremely limited circulation. = fchd 13:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I will nominate for deletion, anyway (if I can work out how to do it). Struway2 | Talk 14:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability of youth international players

Just wondering, but what are the guidelines on youth international players? I mean teams such as Under-21, Under-19, but not really any younger. GiantSnowman 17:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


U-21 players usually played at least one or two profesional season, but a player just played not more than 50 games be notable? Matthew_hk tc 17:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

There should be no guideline at all. They are likely to be notable only if they played on a professional basis (and I agree with this). --Angelo 17:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yet another unconfirmed signing added to S.S. Lazio by some ruthless IP user. Might you please help me in reverting these edits, as I've already used all my three reverts. --Angelo 22:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

  • This guy's getting on my tits. Alexrushfear 22:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I've request semi-protection, so let's wait (however I think it might get a little long before, as there are very few admins for covering such a large project). --Angelo 22:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah well, he seems to have stopped for now anyway. Oh, by the way Angelo, would you happen to know in which season Lazio had their shirt sponsored by Parmacotto? Alexrushfear 22:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • From 2003 to 2005, according to Parmacotto itself: [3]. --Angelo 22:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks a lot, haven't been able to find it; didn't actually think of looking on the Parmacotto site itself. Alexrushfear 23:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Have a look also at List of Italian football players with dual nationality, another target of our friend. Oh, by the way he seems to have an account as well. --Angelo 23:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Matt Baker?

Has anyone heard anything about where Matt Baker's going to be playing next season? I've been itching to edit his page for months but I haven't heard a thing. Alexrushfear 22:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

This guy is completely ignoring all my messages, keeps on changing Nonda's nationality from Congo DR to Burundi, despite the fact the player played internationally solely for the former. Could you please revert his edits on A.S. Roma, as I've no more reverts available. --Angelo 23:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Dave Hancock

Is Dave Hancock notable? He's a physiotherapist for a big club. Doesn't really look like it. Mattythewhite 16:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

No. By the way, a Corinthians physio's article was deleted some time ago as well. --Angelo 16:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • To be honest I'd say being physio for Chelsea is notable enough, although the article could do with some expanding, but if not much more can be found, then perhaps it could go. Alexrushfear 22:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • If the physio for Corinthians isn't notable - and that article was definitely deleted - then this one is no more notable just because he is Chelseas phsyio. In my opinion he is as non notable as the Corinthians phsyio. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Although I'd say Chelsea are bigger globally than Corinthians, I'd have said the Corinthians physio was notable enough too. Alexrushfear 22:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Apologies :) but I still disagree. It is also questionable whether Chelsea are a bigger club, given that Corinthians are the second most popular club in Brazil. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 01:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I recently took some steps towards wikifying the article for Bournemouth Gasworks Athletic F.C.. However, having done so, I have a couple of questions: first, is the team notable? Their finest hour appears to have been appearing in the final of the FA Amateur Cup in 1930. Secondly, the creator of the article put that the team have folded, and I have obviously not changed that. However, I couldn't find any further information about this fold, and was wondering if anybody know when they went defunct? Robotforaday 17:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The club folded in 1973. As Amateur Cup finalists, they would (in my opinion) easily pass the bar of notability without any further achievements, but they were also Hampshire League Champions on five occasions, Hampshire Senior Cup Winners twice, and Dorset Senior Cup Winners on no less than 10 occasions. I'll try and expand the article somewhat. - fchd 19:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I felt pretty sure they were notable myself, but thought it was best to check here before too many people put in work - also, seemed like a good idea to flag it up here, as I knew that there were people here with access to far more sources than I have. On which note, do you have a reference for that 1973 date, perchance? (I assume the "Gone But Not Forgotten" volume which has been added as a reference would include that, I don't have access myself to say for sure, provide page no. etc.) Robotforaday 20:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

English competition templates

For some reason {{Football League Championship}}, {{Football League One}} and {{Football League Two}} (and possibly more) are non-standardised templates - this is why nesting other templates with them is such a complete pain in the arse (causing templates to sit inside each other or just break). Fixing them would be a piece of cake as per diff but would mean changing all inclusions on club articles to using {{fb start}} and {{fb end}}.

So before I go around thinking of changing 3 leagues worth of club articles, would changing these templates to the standardised version be a good idea? Foxhill 02:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh I forgot to add, the errors (like the FLC template sitting inside another) mainly happens when someone tries to nest a standardised team template with this bunch. A quick and dirty workaround to enable your standardised template to nest with a non-standardised one properly is to add an extra table close |- before the final <includeonly> statement of your team template such as ::<code><nowiki>|-<includeonly>
{{fb end}}
Hope that helps someone. Foxhill 03:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

</nowiki>

Transfer Sections

Are these neccessary on articles such as Aston Villa F.C. where a new section has been created for the 2007/2008 transfers. This goes against WP:RECENT because in a few months time it will be non-notable. It seems like Wikinews material to me. Anyone else agree (or disagree)? Should this information be retained, deleted or moved to a history page? Opinions please! Woodym555 14:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Mattythewhite 14:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I've been wanting to remove these from the MLS team articles. One more person to agree and I'll do it. --Elliskev 15:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Delete - I've removed the one from the Fulham article once or twice, but it keeps coming back. - fchd 15:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Italian clubs (see S.S. Lazio and A.S. Roma have whole long lists of confirmed transfers for the new season some of which have evolved into edit wars. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Get rid - this is sheer recentism, and better suited for wikinews. Robotforaday 19:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Could we not get this written as a guideline in either the main football manual of style or in the English clubs templates area. I think it would be good to link to a statement somewhere in guidelines when discussing on talkpages your reasoning behind its deletion. Just a suggestion. Woodym555 19:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Given the scandal that has erupted following the actions of the Chilean team, and Toronto police, I was hoping that some neutral editors - particularly those who speak Spanish - could take a look at both the current wording, and the references, to help maintain a neutral POV on that section. Already, I've removed claims being treated as fact (ie: Police "hiding evidence") and claims that were unsupported by the cited references, and by my own research (ie: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper "demanding" an investigation). I added the Toronto Police view of the incident, but the section is unapologetically sympathetic to the Chilean side. It will bear watching. Regards, Resolute 00:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

UEFA Champions League 2006-07 has other incidents outside the tournament. So, the topic should be there. Kingjeff 01:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, valid content; however, can we find a better header than "Scandal"? That's clearly a matter of opinion - one man's scandal is perfectly acceptable in the next man's eyes. Better described as "Incident", perhaps specifying the match after which it happened? I still don't like the style of the piece - very "newsy", especially the 'flash' about Blatter issuing a statement at a specified future time (which, incidentally, has passed without anyone updating and referencing any resultant Blatter proclamation). We're here to recount events, not announce them. Ref (chew)(do) 01:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I changed it to incident. Kingjeff 02:24, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that the incident doesn't belong in this article. It most certainly does. I was just hoping that someone with a greater knowledge of the incident, as well as an understanding of the Spanish articles being cited, can help restore a balance to that section. Resolute 02:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

All is good

User:All is good has seemingly put most of the Premier League club articles up for GA. I recommend we removed them. Clearly not done in good faith. Mattythewhite 10:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not immediately obvious to me why you are sure this wasn't done in good faith. aLii 10:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Well.. most of the articles are a bit rubbish. Sunderland has a big tivia sectiona and has about five references. How is that going to pass GA? Mattythewhite 10:48, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Good faith or not, this is a very bad idea. There are more than enough good article candidates to be reviewed on wikipedia without putting articles forward which clearly aren't ready. Robotforaday 12:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Carlton Cole

I wonder if it's worth semi-protecting the Carlton Cole article. There has been a spate of Turkish IPs in the past week changing Cole's club to Besiktas despite the lack of any official announcements by either Besiktas or West Ham and despite the fact that Cole played for West Ham in a pre-season friendly against Lazio 24 hours ago! I assume the edits are all being done in good faith but they are premature while Cole is in pre-season training with West Ham. Does anyone know a friendly admin? --Malcolmxl5 21:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

TFD

Hello. Another TFD involving squad templates. Please express your opinion at: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 July 22. Thanks. - Darwinek 21:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability of Conference players who haven't played in the League

Would Conference players come under playing in the top amateur league, seeing as the Conference isn't regarded as a fully professional league? If not, shouldn't Wiki's notability policy be clarified to determine on this? As I'm sure many players in the Conference are more famous that most 'amateur' footballers.Alexrushfear 16:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the Conference National comes under the top amateur division. Despite it being called "semi-professional" all the time, it'll still come under amateur. And its of course the top of the non-league divisions. I think we've got onto something here. Mattythewhite 16:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
So the article on Phillips could stay? ;-) Alexrushfear 16:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps - we should wait for responses from more editors on this though. Mattythewhite 16:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Fair do's... Should it remain, I'll start filling in more info after Friday, when school breaks up. Alexrushfear 16:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I do think that the Conference National has become more of a "grey area" regarding notability given that it is virtually a fully professional league. Now I don't know for sure, and perhaps it is something that could be checked, but it could well be that the Conference National is a higher level of professionalism and notability than some top flight leagues in other countries. I certainly think that this is something that needs to be discussed more. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 17:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
By "the top amateur league" I think he's referring to "the highest level in amateur sports". Soccer is not an amateur sport, so forget that criterion - it does not apply to contemporary soccer players. It applies to rowers and suchlike. Second, top-flight players in country x are not automatically notable. It still has to be a fully professional league. Very few, if anyone, seem to acknowledge this. Punkmorten 18:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I hadn't realized playing for a top flight football club didn't automatically meet notability. How will we determine whether top flight leagues in countries like UAE, Qatar, Morocco or Tunisia are "fully professional"? (E.g., I believe I read somewhere that the UAE league has a few teams that are not fully professional, but I can't be sure.) Jogurney 21:05, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but football clearly is amateur in this instance. Mattythewhite 18:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
But the point is, the top level of football is not amateur - and it's sports where it is that that rule applies to. ArtVandelay13 18:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
The fifth division is a professional league differ from nation to nation (professional vs amateur by player's income, as FIFA article), should we focus on who care about a players in lower division? 20 players times 20 teams times 4 level. How many people watch Conference National? And who care about their career? Matthew_hk tc 17:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
What exactly do you mean? Mattythewhite 17:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I support a team who currently play in the Conference National. So theres one person. And Alexrushfear. And WikiGull. Just because you don't care about it doesn't mean others don't. We can't just leave this as it is - we need to make clear guidelines on the notability of players. Despite the fact people apparently don't care. Mattythewhite 18:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
OK so if we are going to go down the route of "who cares and how many people watch that league, then perhaps this article List of attendance figures at domestic professional sports leagues needs to not only be checked, but that the figures are borne in mind. As is clearly seen from that list, the average attendance in the Conference for the 2004-05 season was 1.978 with only just under 1 million people going to Conference matches in that season. By comparison the top flight leagues in Malaysia attracted an average of slightly more with 2,218 but with only a total of 372,624 people going to matches in the 2005 season. The average Conference attendance that season was higher than top flight leagues in Ireland, Iceland and Wales. That list is not all inclusive so I would imagine that the average is also higher than a number of other top flight leagues. In addition more people went (in total) to Conference matches than the top flight leagues in Morroco, Hungary, Serbia, Cyprus, Slovakia and Croatia. Also the total was very similar to the top flight Polish league. On that basis, the Conference is comparable to top flight leagues in a number of countries. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 18:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, there clearly has to be a cut-off point for notability, and the football league seems to be the clearest and most obvious. Sometimes it may seem harsh, but these rules need to be clear and consistent. ArtVandelay13 18:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The Conference is almost a professional league, Stafford Rangers are not professional, although as far as I know the rest of the league is. Dave101talk  19:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there any sort of source which says which clubs are professional or not? Its all a bit dodgy really.. Mattythewhite 19:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Tamworth, Stafford, Burton and Altrincham are the only part-time teams in the Conference I believe (although I can't say for sure about Farsley, Droylsden and Histon). From a personal point of view, it would make sense to include the Conference as a professional league, as it's the vast majority of the teams who are professional, and as even the part-timers are still training at very least 3 or 4 times a week. Below the Conference it becomes the small minority who are professional. Alexrushfear 19:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
We're only talking about Conference National, aren't we? Mattythewhite 19:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Whoops, sorry, still keep forgetting Tamworth got relegated. Alexrushfear 19:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
On here it mentions the BBC covering all the professional clubs in the country - and they cover the Conference National. Mattythewhite 19:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Salisbury City aren't fully professional either ChrisTheDude 20:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Burton are professional, surely? Dave101talk  21:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Salisbury announced they were going full-time this close season, and have signed several players on full-time contracts. And, although I can't find any evidence at the moment, I read/heard that Burton were still part-timers when I went to the Pirelli last season. Alexrushfear 22:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I was under the impression Salisbury had only offered full-time terms to a handful of key players, rather than going completely full-time, but I might be wrong..... ChrisTheDude 09:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I would definitely support inclusion of the Conference, in many cases I think these players are much more notable than some of the youth team player articles you get with Premiership clubs. I think certain Conference players are worthy of articles, such as those who have played hundreds of matches for a single club (e.g. Tony James who played over 250 league matches for Hereford United). Perhaps also those players who have been selected for the respective semi-pro national teams. But I'm sure there are hundreds of players who have played only one or two Conference matches (trialists perhaps) and I don't think they would be notable enough. Who knows what the cut-off point would be: 40, 50, 100 league matches? Bigmike 09:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree there should be a cut off point, if we are to include Conference. A player that played a handful of Conference games then fell into obscurity can hardly be considered notable. Although a player that has played 50 Conference games is arguably more notable than a player that played 1 or 2 Football League games then disappeared. Dave101talk  09:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to add to that, this player Peter Kaye seems to only ever have made one substitute appearance in the Football League (FL) for Huddersfield back in the 1996-97 season. Yet he would be considered notable for what amounts to a few minutes (And by few I mean it has to be less than 90 minutes) in the FL, yet players who currently play week in week out in the Conference National, a level that is not too far below the FL, are not considered notable if they have never played in the FL. I really do think that the Conference National needs to be re-evaluated for the notability of players. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 01:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Another thing is the coverage the Conference National gets. On BBC Sport, Sky Sports its given its own sections. And Soccerbase give stats for players in the division. Just something worth mentioning.. And in response to the John Kaye story, its quite sad really. Considering a player life Jason Goodliffe has played hundreds of games at Conference level, but all that Kaye has done is play a few minutes of a game... Mattythewhite 13:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Surely something needs to be done as Kaye is notable for playing part of one match in league football, yet numerous players who spend their whole careers playing at Conference National level, which is not too different in the level of football from League Two, are stil considered to be non-notable. I realise there has to be a cut off point, and I am not suggesting for one moment that it should go as low as Conference North and Conference South, but the Conference National is at worst a grey area, and perhaps it is time to consider that players who play at that level are notable. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 14:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I think we're going to have to come up with a concensus to get this decided. Mattythewhite 16:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to bring this up again, but yet another AfD, shows how this needs looking at. Mark Danks was proposed for deletion. However, I voted to keep because, no matter what anyones opinion, he does meet the current criteria. Yet his article states that in the 2002-03 season he made 4 substitute appearances for Bradford City F.C., before being released at the end of that season. He is now playing in the Conference North. Yet players who have played their whole career in the Conference National are currently not considered notable, even though Danks' notability rests on what amounts to a matter of minutes playing in the FL. In my opinion the Conference National needs to be considered for inclusion in players being notable in some way. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 21:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem with that argument is that it could be extended indefinitely - if Conference National appearances guarantee nationality, then you could equally say "player X only has a few appearances in the Conference National, whereas player Y has played hundreds of games in the sixth tier". And so on and so forth. It makes perfect sense that the football league is the cut-off point: the divide between League 2 and the Conference is the clearest there is - non-league football is still very different to league football, despite how far the Conference has come. ArtVandelay13 22:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but that is not what I mean at all and I disagree completely that it could ever be extended even slighbtly. That in no way bears any resenblance to what has been suggested. The whole reasoning is because the Conference National is virtually a full time professional league, whereas the Conference North and South are not nor will they be. This is a discussion on that basis and not based on "just because player x has played once in the Conference National" and yet player z has played his whole career in the league below. The huge difference being that players in the Conference National are for the most part playing for full time clubs in a full time national league, which is similar to FL2. At no time will the Conference North or South be a full time fully pro league, nor a national league. I also think you are wrong stating that the whole of non-league football is very different. Non-league football below the Conference National yes I fully agree with you, it is very different from the FL. However, the Conference National is a national league whereas all the leagues below it are regional, it is the 5th division of English football, average attendances are above some top flight leagues in other countries and similar to other top flight attendances in other countries, including countries like Iceland. I realise that there has been the cut off point of FL2, and that there could be concerns of how far this could be extended, but the point still remains that players like Mark Danks etc are only notable for playing minutes of FL football, whereas other players who play full time their whole career aboce the level he seems to have played at since then, are not notable. That is something that in my opinion needs discussing. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's worth pointing out that Icelandic First Division (for example) players aren't considered automatically notable. Also, I'm not sure where the idea comes from that the Conference is 'mostly professional' - about half of the clubs are fully professional, as far as I'm aware. As a result, players come and go more frequently than in league football - lots of players are on short-term contracts, and play for several clubs a season, so clubs routinely use 40+ players per season. Also, attendances are frequently in three figures. ArtVandelay13 22:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Not quite sure where you're getting those stats from, last season only one team in the Conference averaged below 1,000 attendance, and the overall average for the division was over 1,900.[4] And at least 16 of the 24 clubs are fully professional, and some of the others are going full-time. Alexrushfear 23:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I would fully support a move to make Conference level footballers in professional teams notable, the league is almost entirely professional except a few Semi-Pro teams. There are semi-pro teams in the Jupiler League in Belgium would this make a player who had played his entire career for R.S.C. Anderlecht or Club Bruges Non-notable? I would also like to raise the point that if Farsley Celtic (Semi Pro) were promoted to FL2 next season and chose to remain semi-pro, under the current notablity definition we would then have to delete every player to have played at that level due to the fact that it would no longer be a "fully professional" league. Say they then decided to turn pro halfway through the season, the player articles could all be reinstated. I also think that playing for Oxford United (a pretty important top level team and league cup winner 21 years ago) is notable despite their recent decline in fortunes. I hope that we can come to some kind of consensus, or at least a less arbitrary definition of notablity.King of the North East 23:02, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
The Belgian league is a bit of a false comparison - it's the top division in quite a strong Eurtopean country - a lot of its players will have played in the Champions League, UEFA Cup, etc. You have to take the argument against the combination of things - it's semi-pro, it's non-league (this is key), and that it's the fifth division, the 93rd-116th clubs - this is a long way down the list - it's not as if the current rules are particularly stringent, thousands of players can qualify. ArtVandelay13 09:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
  • My biggest concern in all this would be how we'd reword WP:BIO. We obviously couldn't change it to "fully-professional or semi-professional league", so the only way to do it would be to specifically word an exception for the CN, and if it was changed to something like "athletes who have competed in a fully-professional league (or the Conference National in English football)", wouldn't that potentially lead to fans of other sports/leagues calling for their leagues to be added to the list of "exceptions".....? ChrisTheDude 09:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the main problem would be in how to apply such a change retrospectively. For the teams that have come down from the football league it's easy as they've stayed professional, particularly in Torquay's case where anyone who played for us up to now being notable. The question would be what to do with a team like Morecambe. Now a league team, but would this mean that we could include players who had played for them in the Conference, or only those that had played for them in the Conference while they were a professional team? WikiGull 10:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Also what about a player who played loads of matches in the Alliance Premier League between, say, 1979 and 1983? At that time there were no professional teams or players in the division at all, but if the requirement was simply "has played in the Conference National" then such a player would pass the requirement. I think we'd need to start adding additional requirements above and beyond simply "has played in the Conference National"...... ChrisTheDude 15:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

League names

A quick clarification required. What is the naming policy of domestic European league articles? The German Regionalliga (shouldn't it be Regionalligen (plural) anyway?) article, for example, it is given the German title, whereas the section headings of the two divisions (Nord and Süd) are given English translations. - Dudesleeper · Talk 14:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The Regionalliga is one league, played in two divisions. Therefore it's Regionalliga if you talk about the third tier of German football, but if you talk about the divisions, it's Regionalligen. As the designations of the divisions are merely georgaphical designations, I have no qualms with them being translated. It also helps to avoid the umlaut that may give problems in some webbrowsers. Madcynic 19:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Have a look at List of football (soccer) competitions maybe. It appears that the competitions of the major football nations tend to be identifed using the native language. I would lean to using the original German with clarification or translation in English as required i.e. Oberliga (pl. Oberligen), especially given that terms such as Nord, Süd, and Ost are fairly obvious. Following the logic of the thing through from the other side you end up with Regional League North, Upper League Bavaria, Circle League Cologne, Federal League Hesse, etc., etc. and I can't see the point in that. Its not common usage and creates confusion by making the things unidentifiable unless you translate them back the other way.
That umlaut, however, is a bitch. But try searches using Regionalliga South, Sud, Süd, and Sued, just out of curiosity to see what you get. Wiggy! 03:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

90 Minutes for Mandela

90 Minutes for Mandela was a recent celebrity charity football match held in Cape Town to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 89th birthday, and featured stars past and present such as Pele and Samuel Eto'o. I would have no problem finding references etc. for the article (the BBC has loads on it!) but is it notable enough to merit an article? It is probably only a one-off... GiantSnowman 16:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this is the second match in honor of Mr. Mandela, and while I do think this is an event for a football fan, I doubt it's worthy of an article. If this match merits an article, then there are many other benefiz matches that would. Madcynic 19:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I've added details of the first match into the '90 Minutes...' article. What other benefit matches are you thinking of? GiantSnowman 20:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Definitely not notable to me. There are plenty of charity matches with some news report, but this doesn't mean they're all notable. We already deleted UEFA Champions League and FIFA World Cup matches which had much more news report than this. --Angelo 15:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Please add the article in your watchlist. Two attempts have been made to reinstantiate Basque Country flags in Spain's place. We already discussed the matter previously, and we all agreed to use regional flags only in case they are recognized by a Football Confederation (UEFA and/or FIFA in this case). --Angelo 13:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Help please re logo deletion on Birmingham City F.C.

The club logo image in the infobox on Birmingham City F.C. has just been speedily deleted per WP:CSD#I4. Please can someone who knows something about images, licensing etc tell me what needs to be done to put one back properly? Thanks, Struway2 | Talk 15:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted because a rationale was not provided in seven days' time. I uploaded it back with a rationale, now it should be okay. --Angelo 16:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the original uploader is still active on Wikipedia, and the image wasn't on my watchlist, so presumably no-one noticed it about to go. Thanks for sorting it out! Struway2 | Talk 16:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Carlos Tévez affair

Surely we should make an article on the Carlos Tévez affair. Its gaining worldwide notability.. its such a major thing going on in football at the moment. I've done some work on Kia Joorabchian, but I think we should try and get some pretty good coverage on this - its something that people are going to want to look up. Perhaps? Mattythewhite 17:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Quite no. It is a clear example of recentism, so there's no need for an article about a single transfer affair, read WP:NOT#OR. Wikipedia is not a place for things people are going to look up, it is an encyclopedia. We deleted an article about Beckham's move to LA Galaxy, and Tevez's troubles with West Ham are no more notable than that. Use Wikinews instead if you really want to create such an article. --Angelo 17:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the Carlos Tévez article, I think that more work should be done there to cover events. No need for a separate article. Robotforaday 19:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the affair is really notable as it boils down to a contractual dispute. It'll be resolved in weeks and forgotten by next season... --Malcolmxl5 22:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sheffield and Hallamshire Senior Cup

I was going through the County Cup competitions category and found that Sheffield and Hallamshire Senior Cup 2005-06 and Sheffield and Hallamshire Senior Cup 2006-07 had both been created. I think this is overkill to a very high degree, so what I've done is to propose deletion of the 06-07 article, copy the information from there into the article on 05-06, and then moved that article to Sheffield and Hallamshire Senior Cup. If the 06-07 article is deleted, then Template:Sheffield and Hallamshire senior Cup should also be deleted. I think all this is the right thing to do, however, that article is still in need of real work, having absolutely no competition history before 2005 - hopefully some of you have some sources to achieve such a thing! It also remains debatable whether the complete set of results from the past years competitions has any part in wikipedia at all...Robotforaday 19:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Along the same lines I have moved Oxfordshire Senior Cup 2006-07 to Oxfordshire Senior Cup Robotforaday 19:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Despite having done some cleaning up on both the Sheffield & Oxfordshire articles, I tend to agree - season-by-season results for County Cup competitions are overkill for Wikipedia. If on the other hand, people want these, I've been collating results of this nature for a couple of years, and have at one of my web pages a fairly good breakdown of the 2006-07 results. - fchd 20:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, no question these results generate some interest, and as always, its great that your site is around. I for one am interested in the outcome of these competitions - I created Liverpool Senior Cup a while ago, at which time I think it was the only article on a senior cup, (and looking at its current state, should really do some more work on it). It's more just a question of how much detail wikipedia goes into before it starts to be become a sports almanac. Robotforaday 20:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Are Blogs acceptable as External Links?

Blogs are not acceptable as references or citations but are they acceptable as External Links to a player? Specifically I saw two "fan blogs" as external links in Sergio Agüero. Should they stay or go? My vote FWIW is delete as blogs are by definition NPOV. What is the consensus? Alexf(t/c) 21:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL includes blogs among links to be normally avoided, so remove them. I agree as well. --Angelo 22:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:EL 'Links normally to be avoided', no. 11, rules out blogs except except those written by a recognized authority--Malcolmxl5 22:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Done. Thx. Alexf(t/c) 00:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Estonian Football

I have just declined a speedy request on Tallinna_HK_Stars but the article is in an unacceptable state. The editor concerned has created a number of articles on Estonian football teams but they are simply lists of players and have an infobox in what appears to be Estonian. I'm not overly keen on just putting them into the deletion process as I'm sure we can use the articles but they probably won't survive long in their current state. Is there any kind soul who might be willing to work with this new user to fix the articles? I also cross posted this at Wikiproject Estonia. Thanks. Spartaz Humbug! 22:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind - apparently its Ice Hockey Spartaz Humbug! 00:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict):I took a look at Tallinna_HK_Stars and recoiled! I've added an introduction saying what they are and why they are notable but there's a lot of work needed. You realise they are an ice hockey team?!! --Malcolmxl5 00:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
No I didn't.... Thanks for looking at it anyway Spartaz Humbug! 00:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I know next to nothing about ice hockey but it would be a shame to lose articles just because the creator has a poor grasp of English and a poor grasp of the way en.wiikpedia works. I have added an intro and assertation of notability to all of them, the ice hockey specialists can take over from there. --Malcolmxl5 01:25, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Fran Mérida

An admin from this project should check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fran Mérida.-Wafulz 15:02, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Or rather [5]. Speedy overturn?? Punkmorten 14:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Why "speedy overturn"??? Is there a valuable reason for doing so? Yet another Afd? --Angelo 14:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Propose

Just to let people know, that I proposed a change to {{National squad}} which can be found here.

The change is to change | to

I also tried to do this to {{football squad2 player}} but was reverted. The person suggested to do that told me to alert this page. But the discussion is at the {{National squad}} page.

Thanks SpecialWindler talk 09:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I still think that there is no advantage at all of doing this. If anything, I think it looks slightly worse. - fchd 11:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I can't say that's the way to go. I changed a few non-football navigation boxes over to bulletpoints, but now I think they look rubbish, so I'm changing them back to the vertical-line dividers. - Dudesleeper · Talk 14:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Movement of articles

I will be moving ALL the Fußball-Bundesliga pages to Fußball-Bundesliga XXXX-XX in line with FA Premier League XXXX-XX to achieve greater consistency with regards to football seasons. So, for an example, Fußball-Bundesliga 2007/08 would move to a new page called Fußball-Bundesliga 2007-08. The La Liga (Spanish league) now follows the same manner of title as well. The La Liga seasons are now called La Liga XXXX-XX. As with regards to other nations, I will be moving their respective pages as well. This would take a lot of work to synchronize ALL the football seasons in different nations to one common title. Furthermore, most football nations do not have a more general scope in dealing with lower divisions as well as the top division. For example, there is an article on 2007-08 in English football but there is none on 2007-08 in Spanish football, which is a bit surprising to say the least. --Siva1979Talk to me 13:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

English league arrest statistics

For those that are updating the supporters sections or rivalries sections of English League clubs, there are a set of statistics relating to the type and number of arrests made at each club on the Home Office website.

Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2001-2002 (PDF)
Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2002-2003 (PDF)
Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2003-2004 (PDF)
Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2004-2005 (PDF)
Statistics on football-related arrests and banning orders 2005-2006 (PDF)

Hope this is useful to someone - Foxhill 17:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Humberto Suazo Talk defaced in Turkish

Talk:Humberto Suazo has been replaced with a lengthy text in Turkish, mentiuoning something about Galatasaray. I do not have a clue what this kind souls is saying. Before removing as vandalism I preferred to ask here how to deal with it. I remember seeing a WP page on posting on other languages but can't seem to find it now. Can someone please take a look at the Talk page? Thx. Alexf(t/c) 20:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Found the rule and reverted the deleted text. Posted:= Template:Uw-english notice on user's Talk page. Alexf(t/c) 21:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Happened again on next day, same Turkish text, this time from User:85.101.253.215‎ also an account with Turk Telecom as it was the other IP address User:81.214.40.89. Alexf(t/c) 17:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Very odd. I guess there is some transfer speculation in the Turkish press. The Carlton Cole article had a week of Turkish IPs changing Cole's club to Besiktas in response to some transfer speculation but at least this was in English! --Malcolmxl5 20:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Leek Town F.C. peer review

Anyone care to take a look at the Peer Review request for Leek Town F.C.? It's been up for over a week without attracting a single comment. I know a week isn't long in the grand scheme of things, but I'm not a patient man :-) ChrisTheDude 07:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Chris, after a quick read it looks good. The graph you made is interesting. I saw the comment/reversal in Talk about some copyright issues. I did not follow the ref links yet to see if some material was copied verbatim, but assuming it's not, it does indeed look good to me, with plenty of references and material. Good job! Alexf(t/c) 10:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
The comment on the talk page dates from months before I even looked at the article and I certainly wouldn't ever copy material verbatim ChrisTheDude 10:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I did not mean to imply you did. Sorry if that was the perception, it was not intended. All I meant is that I read the comment and did not have time to follow links and verify. Alexf(t/c) 10:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this club notable? I have some doubts as this article was created by an unreliable user, Gizmo10, who previously was the author of his own club here, so I'm a bit concerned (and I don't see such a particular notability in the article itself). Thanks in advance. --Angelo 17:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It reads as if it has been copied and pasted from the clubs website. The club does seem to exist but it is a local junior club with teams up to U18 level only and surely fails notability. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 18:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Horribly written and completely unsourced article, and no I wouldn't say it passes the guidelines.... ChrisTheDude 20:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
The vast majority of the article is a copyvio from here and here..... ChrisTheDude 09:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a difficult one. The Leinster Senior League is the highest level provincial league, and therefore is at level 3 in the Rep of Ireland "pyramid". However, the LSL is split into Saturday and Sunday sections (Cabinteely play in the Saturday section), and I'm not sure if the Sunday section is the "top level" of the LSL, whether they are equal, or what. - fchd 10:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

When you say the leagues is at level 3, is that official? ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 14:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I opened an AFD regarding the subject. The article actually passed a PROD phase, but was later restored upon explicit complaints by an IP user. So, have your say at the AFD, guys. --Angelo 02:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Duplication of information

Example case in point: Juan Manuel Peña. Should his playing-career history be included in the prose even though it's listed in the infobox? - Dudesleeper · Talk 17:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it's alright like that as it gives a season by season view, and therefore more representative of the player's form. Would probably look a lot better in a table such as on the Barry Ferguson article. WATP (talk)(contribs) 17:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Ideally it should be converted to prose instead of being an embedded list. Punkmorten 18:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking. - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I also thought about adding a link to a footnote after a summary of the player's time at a particular club. For example:
In eight years at Ipswich, he made 277 league appearances, netting twelve goals.1
^Note 1 : 1982-83: 39 apps (2 goals); 1983-84: 23 (4); 1984-85: 38 (3) ...
This would reduce the risk of statistics overkill in the prose, moving them instead to the "Notes" section at the end of the article. Just an idea; not sure how it would work in practice. - Dudesleeper · Talk 21:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Information in infoboxes should never take the place of information in articles, the duplication is welcome as many lightweight versions of Wikipedia may not have infoboxes and the likes (mirrors, CD versions, mobile phone versions etc.) and not including information in the text that's included in the infoboxes would go against our goals. Yonatan talk 11:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Nery Castillo - speculation edit war

On 25 July, in article Nery Castillo, under Possible Change of Team, User 128.135.163.167 keeps inserting the following: There is a strong possibility that a transfer has already been agreed upon between Olympiacos CFP and Manchester City. [[6]]

I reverted with the following explanation: rm future contract speculation. WP is an encyclopedia. Does not deal with possible future football transfers. Please source them after contract is signed.

He reverted this change again. To avoid an edit war I'd like a ruling on this issue. I think this is speculation and does not belong. Alexf(t/c) 19:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, we should not have speculation imo. I have reverted since the source was indirectly a English tabloid newspaper in which 9 out of 10 transfer stories are wrong (the good old Daily Mirror!) and it is good practice to wait for official confirmation of the transfer from either club. --Malcolmxl5 21:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I saw you did Malcolm. Thanks for the help. Will keep an eye on this. (will we ever get our wish to close editing privileges to non-registered users? :) Alexf(t/c) 22:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
You could request semi-protection for the article, which has that effect for a period. The original IP was to the Uni of Chicago. The edit has been reverted now by a different IP also in Chicago, so I guess the student is now at home! --Malcolmxl5 23:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I have reverted one more time but that is it for now, I afraid. --Malcolmxl5 23:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

(re-indent) Shakhtar Donetsk?? Where did that one come from? --Malcolmxl5 19:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh right, it seems that there are stories that Olympiakos and Shakhtar Donetsk have agreed a deal but Castillo does not want to go to Ukraine! --Malcolmxl5 19:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Reverted Shaktar Donetsk comments. Speculation. -- Alexf(t/c) 20:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Several squads

Do we really need U-20, U-17 and U-15 squads on clubs' articles? Please, take a look at Clube Atlético Paranaense. —Lesfer (t/c/@) 16:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. It looks overdone. The majors current national team should suffice IMO. -- Alexf(t/c) 16:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If they have a notable youth academy then U-20, U-17 and U-15 squads should go there. Kingjeff 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

But how many clubs' academies are notable in their own right? Ajax maybe, but I'd be struggling to come up with any more. Certainly I wouldn't expect any English academy to pass the bar of notability. - fchd 18:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Crewe maybe? But even so, it should only be mentioned briefly. GiantSnowman 20:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Byline (soccer) up for deletion

Apparently 'byline' is a lesser known sports term so it's up for AfD here [[7]] Can anyone improve it to improve its chances of retention? Nick mallory 07:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I know this 9-year-old academy player is, using normal rules, by no-means notable, BUT he has been the subject of many news reports and articles (have watched three and read two today alone, including this BBC one, and his video has been watched 3million times on YouTube - does he justify an article? GiantSnowman 16:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I would say this is a clear example of recentism. It's very controversial, however I am not that sure you would remember about him in the years to come (unless he becomes a world-class player, of course, but it's way too soon to say so). I would delete it, but I'm not that sure an AfD would be successful, given how the recent Fran Mérida case ended. --Angelo 21:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Someone has in fact now AfD'ed it..... ChrisTheDude 07:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Scarborough Athletic F.C.

Something needs to be done at Scarborough Athletic. User:CalcioSalvo (formerly User:SalvoCalcio) is determined that his version is the only one worth being on. Despite the fact nine people think he's wrong and none think he's right. His version is irrelevant to the article. Its about Scarborough Athletic, not the demise of Scarborough. Whenever he reverts, he insults other people and is clearly a sockpuppet of User:Daddy Kindsoul. This reverting war has been going on for too long, and it needs to be stopped. Mattythewhite 18:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Whose idea was the reference by the club logo? Urgh. - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Alright. Well, first remove that reference from the club logo (crazy idea). I saw also the matter was already widely discussed in the talkpage, with a consensus on different Scarborough Athletic's history from Scarborough FC's; all you can do is revert his edits at first and try to let him accept this (leave a message in his talk page asking him to do so). If he keeps on editing the article, consider asking a full protection for the article. Are you sure this guy is a sockpuppet of Daddy Kindsoul? I wouldn't be that sure after a rough comparison of their contributes. If you're that sure about this, please ask a checkuser. --Angelo 20:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Now he's trying to get his own back on me by "improving" the York City article. Again, he's showing his pettyness by calling me "some guy". Can't he be banned simply because of his arrogant insults? I mean, he once referred to someone as "the american"? I mean, thats hardly describable. I'm quite simply fed up with him. I've done my best in talking to him, but he simply doesn't listen. He just reverts and reverts. Even though he's clearly wrong on things and is outnumbered, like on Scarborough Athletic. Now I'm being referred to as boy! Whats next!! Mattythewhite 11:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Report it at WP:AN/I. --Angelo 20:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Transfer speculation

It seems whenever there is a transfer rumor anywhere (Sky Sports, BBC, individual blogs, forums, etc.), overexcited editors add misinformation to players' articles. For example, in the past few weeks, people have added stuff to Rodrigo Palacio, Lassana Diarra, Angel di Maria, etc. about how they are "Arsenal players" (when they clearly aren't - Palacio was a blog hoax, Diarra was just a few idle articles in L'Equipe and Sky Sports, di Maria was also a blog hoax and moved to Benfica in the end). Same stuff happens on nearly every player's article the moment there is any transfer news (for example Elano to Man City, which turned out to be true in the end). How do we deal with this? Usually, semi-protection would work but there's so many articles hit with this problem every day, that it's not a feasible option... incidentally Wikipedia is seen as a very unreliable site to most football fans because of this problem. ugen64 08:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Ulster Banner for Northern Irish footballers.

Why is this used? WP:FLAG (an essay, but that doesn't mean you should ignore it) specifically states that flag as something that shouldn't be used due to the Unionist connotations. Will (talk) 17:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

We're a football project, not a politics one. If the wrong flags are being used, be bold and amend them. - Dudesleeper · Talk 18:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
AS WP:FLAG states - "the flag remains in unofficial use in a sporting context, without political implications, and so is appropriate in tables of sports statistics in which Northern Ireland, along with Scotland, Wales and England, is represented separately rather than collectively as the UK.)" - Foxhill 18:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah, didn't see that. Thanks anyway. Will (talk) 18:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Name Transliteration Confussion; Clarification Needed

I am trying to figure out if there is a standard of transliteration of names that is, or should be, adopted to player pages. It mostly applies to players from the former Soviet republics, as well as Eastern European countries. The main question of mine concerns the recent move of Sergei Aleinikov's page to Sergeij Alejnikov, due to an Italian newspaper spelling his name that way. I disagree with that reasoning but before I atempt to move it back I would like to get a confirmation as to what is the accepted norm? Most pages online about him, including UEFA.com (http://www.uefa.com/uefa/history/associationweeks/association=57155/newsId=139779.html) as well as countless others spell his name as Sergei, without the letter "j". The UEFA site also spelles his last name differenty; as Aleynikov. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. —Stochil 02:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Sergeij is clearly not the right name to use. Italian is a different language, and using an Italian newspaper as an authoritative source on his name is thus out of the question. Punkmorten 09:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
An Italian transliteration of a name is surely out of place on the English Wikipedia. The English transliteration should be the norm imo. --Malcolmxl5 13:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it should stay as the original English transliteration. But then again, common sense seems to have no place in these arguments, as I found out when I tried to move Dudu Aouate to Dudu Awat. Number 57 18:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Away colours

I was recently looking for an explanation of exactly when a team uses its away colours in the English leagues, and couldn't find it. I tried Kit (football), and also saw references in different team pages, but no full explanation. Did I miss it? If not, is this something that deserves adding, either as a separate article about kit colours or to the existing Kit article? Mike Christie (talk) 13:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

During the FAC of this page User:Circeus has moved the List of Aston Villa captains over onto the the main list of Aston Villa F.C. players. I personally think it has become a duplication and that the captains could become integrated into the notable players section now. Although this will make the table very large, complicated and indeed overwhelming. Should page deletes be conducted unilaterally. Thoughts please. Thanks Woodym555 16:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Trust me, this did not by any definition make the list "very large" (see List of Chicago Landmarks), "complicated" (see List of United States Presidents by age) or "overwhelming" (see 2005 NFL Draft). Circeus 17:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure Circeus is doing his best to improve the article, he seems to have a lot of experience. Re the two lists, I think club captains are inherently 'notable players' and so the two lists could be integrated. --Malcolmxl5 17:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
How is / was the list of captains verified? Are, say, only players who captained the side for a full season or more included, or is it any player to have donned the armband? Oldelpaso 17:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
As it is, all the captain were already listed in the main list, but the color coding to mark them had severe accessibility issues, which is what prompted me to add the separate table, who had very little data not in the main players list anyway. the captains are a subset of the main list, which, I think, makes more sense in a section, but not distinct or numerous enough to warrant a separate article. Circeus 18:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it should even have its own list on this page. I know it may be a turnaround but i think the captains section should be integrated into the main list. I don't think that the colour coding has many accessibility issues. I think that a separate column should be made for the Captaincy dates and the "achievements" put in footnote form. I also think that i should probably move this discussion onto the talk page of the article concerned. Thanks Woodym555 18:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Flagicons in Infoboxes

Some editors are repeatedly adding flagicons to player infoboxes, while I accept that this often adds to the article in terms of knowing at a glance in which country he has played club football, it detracts from it by bunching the list of clubs so that they no longer align with the years and caps(goals) columns. See these old revisions of López, Camoranesi or Caniggia for examples of this problem. Is it possible to include flags in a way that doesn't spoil the layout of the infobox. If it isn't possible to fix the problem, I would be in favour of removing the flags and reinstating them when the glitch can been overcome.King of the North East 22:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed a few times before. I tend to remove all but the birth-nation flag and international-nation flag (if they're already present and one is different from the other), citing Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Dudesleeper, I agree with flagicons being added to the birth line, but not to the clubs. Also, many top clubs today are represented by many different nationalities, so I do not feel it is appropriate to add the Italian flag to Inter Milan for example. Another issue i'd like to raise, with players such as Miroslav Klose, adding Poland to his birth line gives the impression he plays for the Polish national team at a glance. What are peoples opinion on this? Jackrm 00:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I revised WP:FLAG, and there is an example page on there which looks very similar to the 3 articles being used an example in King of the North East's post. So I edited these 3 pages, but I posted the revisions which were originally in question. Jackrm (talk · contribs) 01:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
This is then the only acceptable type flag in player infobox (cityofbirth):
| cityofbirth = {{flagicon|Argentina}} [[Buenos Aires]]
| countryofbirth = [[Argentina]]
I'm OK with that. Alexf(t/c) 14:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Whats the need for the flag in the first place? Pointless and looks ugly to me. Mattythewhite 14:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm kind of split. As alot of players are born in one country but play for another internationally, putting their birth country flag gives an initial impression that he or she plays for the country which has its flagicon there. But;
"Flag icons may be appropriate in infoboxes to indicate nationality (but not for birth and death), or in tables/lists of country- or region-related information, such as comparison of global economic data or reporting of international sporting event results."
I think we need more opinions and a concencus on this, as i' completely baffled! Jackrm 17:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see flags only for national teams. I think it is unnecessary and potentially confusing for country of birth (and perhaps death). Andrwsc 17:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I've come to believe, after having been around on this merry-go-round a few times, that the WP:FLAG is correct in stating that it's inappropriate next to birthplaces, as per Jackrm's above post. Deco, for example, and the previously mentioned Miroslav Klose both were born in countries they don't play for. Giuseppe Rossi is another such example. So there are enough players out there who play for non-birth nations that it makes sense not to add the flags. Because it seems to be somewhat contentious, I only edit the flags when I'm editing something else as well (especially when an article has been tagged by the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Brazil or similar project because it is possibly more contentious). Isaiahcambron 23:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

A few category names

Am I the only one bothered by the following category names:

Seems a bit confusing? Would it be better off if we rename the categories to Category:Clubs which have played in the Premier League and Category:Clubs which have played in Serie A, etc.? Chanheigeorge 18:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd support that. WATP (talk)(contribs) 20:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Personally I'd rather have Category:Current Premier League clubs, etc and not have cats which list every club that's ever been in a particular division. I mean, would it really aid navigation (which, after all is what cats are for) to have, for instance, Manchester United in Category:Clubs which have played in Division Two based on the fact that they played in the division in 1974-75........? ChrisTheDude 22:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a big fan of categories which reflect current status if the status changes constantly, because people do tend to forget to update the categories. Besides, we can easily navigate to other current clubs in the same division with templates already. I think clubs who have historically played in the top divisions, such as Premier League and Serie A, should be noteworthy enough, while Category:Clubs which have played in Serie B is probably not. Chanheigeorge 22:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Agree with ChrisTheDude. I've just finished populating Category:Football League clubs, which has 72 entries. The Prem category should have 20 entries, not 40. It doesn't make sense to have clubs in both categories. I say we re-define the Prem category for current clubs only. No need to rename the category, just re-write the definition on the category page. It's not high maintenance - the Prem category will have 3 in, 3 out, once a year and the Football League category 5 in, 5 out. --Jameboy 22:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that a category with the name "Premier League clubs" should only contain the 20 current clubs (I guess maintenance is not a big issue here). Whether we create a historic category for present and past EPL clubs is another matter up for discussion. On the other hand, we also have Category:Premier League players and Category:FA Premier League managers, which are historic categories, but people categories are mostly historic, given that people have a limited life.... Chanheigeorge 23:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
There's also the issue of potential category bloat for clubs like Milton Keynes Dons, who'd need to be in Category:Football League clubs, Category:FA Premier League clubs, Category:Isthmian League and Category:Southern League, which would just look chaotic ChrisTheDude 07:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with just keeping the current clubs in the category, and I don't see a need for a category of former PL clubs. Number 57 08:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
If these categories are to be for current clubs, what is the point in them, given that we have navigation templates? ArtVandelay13 09:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I think we have four options here. We can have some sort of straw poll.
  1. No change.
  2. Category:FA Premier League clubs contains only the 20 current clubs. No category for all current and former clubs.
  3. Rename category to Category:Clubs which have played in the Premier League to contain all current and former clubs. No category for only the current clubs.
  4. Two categories, one for current clubs and one for all current and former clubs.
This will also apply to Category:Serie A clubs, Category:Serie B clubs and other similar categories. Chanheigeorge 18:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I think 3 is the best option; as ArtVandelay13 says, the current clubs are linked by template. My only concern is its longwinded name. Number 57 18:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 1 for me. The name is fine, it's no different to Cat:Liverpool F.C. players containing ex-players. Just make the category header clear enough. ArtVandelay13 18:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Comment: I think a category like Category:FA Premier League clubs is different from Category:Liverpool F.C. players. Instead, compare it to a category like Category:G-14 clubs. Let's say Arsenal decides to quit G-14 today, you wouldn't expect to see it to be still under that category because they once were a member? Chanheigeorge 01:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'll go for 2. OK it's recentist (or "currentist" if you will), but some categories work better that way. I just don't think historical categories of teams who have played in various divisions adds any value, and I don't like the way the Prem gets "special treatment", like football didn't exist before 1992... If you have all the teams who have played in the Prem you should probably have a list of all teams who have played in the old Div1, Div 2 etc as well, and it wouldn't be particularly useful. Also option 2 fits in with the style of other categories such as Category:Football League clubs. --Jameboy 22:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I guess I have to vote for #4, to make every option have one vote each.... Kidding aside, I propose this: Category:FA Premier League clubs contain the current 20 members, and perhaps a subcategory Category:Former FA Premier League clubs contain the former teams. This gives more clarity than the current scheme, and I feel the teams that were once in the EPL warrants a category, given the importance of the league. Chanheigeorge 01:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with ArtVandelay. There's no need for a category of current clubs, but a category that lists all the clubs is interesting. Of course, only for the top-tiers. CapPixel 09:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone care to take a look at this FAC? It doesn't seem to be attracting much interest at the moment....... ChrisTheDude 07:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Who's in blue?

Can someone please help me identify who Blackpool (in tangerine, natch) are playing in this image from the '60s. My first thought was Everton, but I'd prefer some input before I add an image tag at a later point. Thanks. - Dudesleeper · Talk 20:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Leicester are another possibility. I take it the ground is Bloomfield Road. Oldelpaso 20:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Affirmative. As for it possibly being Leicester, an image search shows them as having blue socks as opposed to white. - Dudesleeper · Talk 20:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
1960s Everton team photos - white collars throughout. Oldelpaso 21:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Ipswich Town, 1969? Though I think the two team were in different division. --Malcolmxl5 22:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Ha! I've just seen the 'Vauxhall & Bedford' endorsement on the roof of the stand. Vauxhall produced their cars at Ellesmere Port on the Mersey in the 1960s so some support there for the Everton theory though the shirt doesn't have the collar. This site is about as good as it gets for info on historical kit. --Malcolmxl5 22:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
The ground isn't in question; it's Blackpool's. Bang goes my hopes of the opponents being Everton, however. Ta for the link. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh well. I'm going to settle for Cardiff City in the late '60s when both teams were in the 2nd Division. See their kit here. --Malcolmxl5 22:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Good call. The round white logo of the 1969-70 kit seems to jog with the player in the background and to the right. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
October 4, 1969, for future reference. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Famous supporters

Should we have these in football articles? Definetley not in my opinion. They've subjective, trivial and unneeded really. What is the definition of a famous person? One wikipedian may say "Famous supporter 1" is famous, but another may disagree. They may be sourced, like on West Bromwich Albion, but what difference does that make? Wow, a source confirms it, but how does it make it notable on Wikipedia? Mattythewhite 17:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not. Absolutely irrelevant. The Rambling Man 18:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely not. These sections are inherently unencyclopedic, usually completely unreferenced, and act as cruft magnets. Burn them on sight. --John 18:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Just trawled through the archives and found this: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 9#Celebrity fan sections. It is fairly comprehensive. I personally think they are irrelavent. If it is notable for the person, add it on their page. I think a new guideline should be created to act as a point of reference just as we need one for transfer sections. Woodym555 18:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone follows the example link above, I have actually now removed all of the celebrity supporters from West Bromwich Albion, following the consensus here. Each reference has been moved to the individual page of the celebrity fan concerned, except for one that was dubious. I agree that a guideline should be created for this. --Jameboy 14:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment: Numbers in sports

From Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics and Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers, we request your input on the following guidelines for sports facts included in articles about numbers (quoted below). For example, should the article about the number 23 include David Beckham's jersey number? How about the jersey number of a famous hockey player for whom the number was never retired? How about the #23 draft pick for Real Madrid? I've also included the guidelines for NASCAR as an example of how the guidelines for a specific sport might look like. Knotslip12 20:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers

On the subject of retired shirt numbers.....football only began using squad numbers very recently and the concept of retired numbers doesn't really exist. Prior to the 90s, players simply wore 1-11, and any serious football fan could probably name at least 25 all time greats associated specifically with each number from 1-11
On the subject of draft picks......football doesn't have drafts ChrisTheDude 20:20, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
So, did the numbers 1 to 11 correspond to specific positions?
And what do you think about the number articles? Should they or shouldn't they list football players' squad numbers? Knotslip12 21:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
The numbers 1-11 corresponded roughly to positions, e.g. the centre forward generally wore 9, and that squad number is still usually allocated to a centre forward, but there was never anything in the Laws of the Game to state who could or couldn't wear number 9, so any reference in the article on the number 9 would end up being quite vague. Modern squad numbers are not generally considered important, to be honest I doubt I could even list the squad numbers of most of my team's players..... ChrisTheDude 15:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Transcribed from WP:NUM#Numbers_in_sports

Numbers in sports

Numbers that appear in the official rules of the game, such as the total number of players per team, number of game partitions (e.g., 9 innings in baseball) are worth mentioning in the number articles.

A record is worth mentioning if it is from a Major League player, or if it appears in the Guinness Book of World Records. Be sure to indicate the year the record was set in order to facilitate removal when a new record is set.

In sports where the number on a player's shirt is not determined by the position he plays, only numbers that have been retired by a Major League team are worth noting. But if a player's number is determined by the position he plays, this probably falls under the rules of the game consideration above.

NASCAR numbers

Car numbers of teams that have won the Daytona 500 or the NEXTEL Cup Series championship are worth noting in the articles on the corresponding numbers.

Infobox for Final Articles

Does anyone else feel that it would be beneficial to have an infobox for final articles? NapHit 16:42, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Eh? Mattythewhite 16:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
What sort of information would you include? WATP (talk)(contribs) 16:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Flags, of course. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I would include the year of the final, the winner and runner up, venue, competition and maybe man of the match or referee. NapHit 11:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's particularly worth. I think it's way more important to improve the prose in these articles, have a look at some of these articles and you'll realize there's a definite lack of non-templated content in many of them. In short, follow the Manual of Style. --Angelo 21:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

European Football Records

Am in an ongoing edit war with someone in the European football records and UEFA Cup finals articles. In short, I claim backed by uefa.com references ([8], [9]) that The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup is not recognized as a UEFA tournament by UEFA. The other editor claims The Inter Cities Fairs Cup and UEFA Cup are the same tournament and cites a computer game as source (here). Could an administrator arbitrate the conflict and resolve the issue (lock the articles)? Thanks. BestEditorEver 19:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone, since 1971, has treated the UEFA Cup as a continuation of the Fairs Cup. It's only been brought to my attention through this article editing issue that UEFA now don't. All my reference sources to hand, both in print (e.g. Rothmans/Sky Sports annuals, World Soccer, etc.) and on-line (e.g. RSSSF etc.) treat them as predecessor/successor competitions. In its time, the Fairs Cup had the same media profile as the UEFA Cup does now, and, in my opinion, should be included. - fchd 20:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Fairs Cup is the predecessor of the UEFA Cup. Who is stating otherwise? They're still two different tournaments, one acknowledged by UEFA and one not. The Fairs Cup has a page of its own in this encyclopedia, just as your online source RSSSF separates the Fairs and Uefa Cup results here and here -- similar to uefa.com, the what should be definite source on this matter. -- BestEditorEver 05:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
If you believe the tournaments are the same then why aren't you arguing Richard to merge the Fairs and UEFA Cup articles into one. Isn't it redundant to have an independent Fairs Cup article and another entry for the Fairs and UEFA Cup?
The Fairs Cup results are included either way (I added them myself, although I don't see the point), they just don't count towards the clubs' total per UEFA. Anyway, my version of the article is referenced. -- BestEditorEver 11:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This nomination for featured list needs a few more votes, positive or negative for it to meet the threshold. Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Aston Villa F.C. players Can members please look at it and vote accordingly. (I don't want it to fail simply because of a lack of numbers, if it fails because it isn't very good, then so be it). Thanks Woodym555 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This image (which is currently used as the logo for WPF) is currently up for deletion on Commons [10] as it contains copyrighted material (the Wikipedia logo). {{football}} has already been changed to not use this image and I would recommend that people update any other places they know this logo has been used. As it is a derivative work of a WikiMedia logo, I don't think it will survive the IFD and moving it over here to Wikipedia wouldn't work either (as we're not allowed to use copyrighted images in templates and userboxes). Just a heads up, Cheers - Foxhill 21:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability of football articles

The page Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability was created over 18 months ago, in the intervening time we've failed to come up with an overarching statement that can go on the page.

I have posted a suggestion for this articles text at the WP:Footy/notability talk page and welcome all input from interested parties. Cheers - Foxhill 21:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The dividers in these templates were recently changed from "|"s to "•"s, without a particularly clear consensus after a short discussion at Template talk:National squad. I was wondering what the consensus would be here, with a wider range of inputs? WATP (talk)(contribs) 00:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

List of goals by a player - reads like sports magazine

I've seen player's articles listing every goal they made. This seems ridiculous and not encyclopedic. Example: International goals table on Nery Castillo. Opinions? Remove? -- Alexf(t/c) 16:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd delete table of goals/appearnces. GiantSnowman 18:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Done. I'll keep an eye out for other players with the same issue. -- Alexf(t/c) 19:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
One person's comment constitutes a consensus now? - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
OK. What's your opinion then? -- Alexf(t/c) 20:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Convert to prose (like in Pelé's article mentioned below), then remove. I'm not in favour of the wholesale removal of information for no reason. - Dudesleeper · Talk 21:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Dudesleeper, I think it is not encyclopedic and overdone, but as you have a point in having more discussion, I restored them until we get a better idea. In case it is not clear by now, I vote delete :-) -- Alexf(t/c) 21:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm having a hard time understanding how it isn't encyclopedic. Please explain. - Dudesleeper · Talk 21:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Look at Shunsuke Nakamura. I have once removed, but reverted. I accept Pele one (season by season), and more detailed which games scored in INTERNATIONAL TEAM, but not for club. Matthew_hk tc 20:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Just checked Nakamura. I find the list way overdone. A sports stats section in a newspaper, the player's, or his team's website are a more apropriate place for that kind of detail IMHO. -- Alexf(t/c) 21:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a related AfD, Gilberto Silva goals. Matthew_hk tc 21:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Good link! Thanks for the pointer as I had not seen it. I agree with AfD in Silva's case and the reasons pointed to there (see you voted for deletion too). Does the Silva case form a consensus? What do WP Project Football members at large think? Surely we should not need to open and AfD case as in Silva's (or Nakamura's) every time. -- Alexf(t/c) 21:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The Silva case is a completely different issue because that was an "article" which was merely a list of goals. Putting a list of goals within a relevent article is ok in my eyes, but I guess it depends upon the scope of the list. Listing every goal scored by Pelé is obviously ridiculous, as it would dwarf the article, but listing goals scored by Jamie Carragher seems perfectly reasonable as he's only scored 3 or so.

I think statistics tables are always a good thing. I assume that concensus would be with me seeing as the standard player infobox has provisions for listing some statistics. Going back to Pelé as an example, the table show in his article is highly encyclopedic. aLii 11:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with stats tables, and Pelé is a perfect example on why they should be included. Mattythewhite 11:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Chelsea F.C. and FC Barcelona football rivalry

Chelsea F.C. and FC Barcelona football rivalry --> This is hardly Barca vs. Real or Man U. vs Liverpool. Do we really want to be creating these kinds of articles? What's next, Liverpool vs. AC Milan? Ronald Koeman vs. English teams? JACOPLANE • 2007-08-9 11:55

Totally agree. Where's the proper connection? Are we going to then allow things like Darlington F.C. and Östersunds FK football rivalry? Extreme example, I know, but do you see where it could lead? Ref (chew)(do) 13:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. Totally nonsense. —Lesfer (t/c/@) 21:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this is nonsense, there is no 'rivalry'. Meeting a handful of times in European competition in recent years does not constitute 'rivalry'. --Malcolmxl5 01:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Ryan Serrant

I've created an AfD for Ryan Serrant and a few other Farsley Celtic players because as far as I am aware they don't currently fulfil the requirements for notability. Chappy TC 08:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[Team Name] 2007-2008 season

I've seen these articles about ten times already, most of up for the upcoming season, and one or two from previous seasons. Question: Are they needed? I don't really think they are, because if some teams have them, surely that means every team should have one. I really think all of these should be deleted, because all fo the information can be put in the team page. Do you think this and this along with all the rest of these stupid pages should be deleted. After all, just what new does it add to the encyclopedia? Either every team gets a page like this, or no teams get pages like this. Davnel03 14:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

My opinion would be to delete them all. Number 57 14:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I also think the following list should be deleted [including this field (there's probably lots more):

Davnel03 14:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

As long as they meet notability then I don't see why they shouldn't stay. As to whether every team or no team gets a page like that is purely up to whether someone wants to create them and whether they can show that the subject is notable enough to qualify for an article, not all teams would be (see WP:ALLORNOTHING). For instance Bristol Rovers F.C. season 2006-07 documents Rovers' promotion winning season in which they won a play-off final for the first time and appeared in a cup final. It also shows which awards the team and club members won in that season. It's referenced well (using good secondary reliable sources), covers all aspects of the season comprehensively, is nicely laid out and (with the addition of a bit more prose) is a possible push for a GA. An article on Chippenham Town F.C.'s last season probably wouldn't be. And finally - as per WP:IDONTLIKEIT - whether you think the subject is stupid or not has no bearing on it's eligibility for inclusion. Foxhill 16:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
As long as they're kept up-to-date, I don't see a problem with them (other than being a little over-the-top statistics-wise). There isn't a dedicated editor for each club, so accordingly there's unlikely to be a season article for each one. - Dudesleeper · Talk 17:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree on the notabilty point. They might be notable now, but are they going to be notable in ten-fifteen years time? I think most of [these are not notable and should be deleted. Wikipedia isn't a dictonary or a directory, so just why should they stay? I don't think they add notability to the encyclopedia. What these articles are is fancruft. There just really isn't any need for some of the article. Right, I'm making a little consensus on these articles on whether these articles should/should not be deleted, seeing as we have different opinions here. If many people believe these types of articles should be deleted, we'll nominate them for deletion.

Support - Articles should be deleted

Oppose - Articles should not be deleted


Other Comments

  • Hopefully we can come to some sort of conclusion to this. Davnel03 17:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
There's an Articles for Deletion page specifically for this process, so take the matter there rather than face the possibility of going through it twice. - Dudesleeper · Talk 17:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah I'll nominate them then. Davnel03 17:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

This has been debated numerous times before, always resulting in them being kept. "Either every team gets a page like this, or no teams get pages like this." is not a valid reason to support deleting all the ones which exist, see WP:OTHERSTUFF. WATP (talk)(contribs) 17:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion here. Davnel03 17:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Valencia CF

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, i'll try anyway. I've added an in-depth history of Valencia CF and everything else is top-notch, but the Valencia CF article still has absolutely no rating at all on the discussion page. Could someone add some ratings, ie B/C or whatever and either High or Medium.

Thanks. (Fadiga09 17:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC))

Done. WATP (talk)(contribs) 22:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Club logos in .svg format

Such as Image:Logo Real Madrid.svg. Are these acceptable or does the fair-use criteria not allow them? WATP (talk)(contribs) 12:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:Logos says "Overly high-resolution versions of copyrighted logos should be avoided, however, as they are less likely to be fair use. For SVG formats, versions of the logo that contain significantly more detail than is necessary to display at the desired (low) resolution should be avoided. Where possible, logos should be uploaded in PNG format. JPEG format should not be used as it is lossy and results in a less professional appearance.", if that is of any help. - fchd 12:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • When talking about Real Madrid, the other logo is too high-resolution to use, isn't it? Punkmorten 13:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Probably, yes. The image description page says there is a .png version somewhere as well which would probably be the best option. WATP (talk)(contribs) 13:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
The PNG version is here, but it's the same size as the GIF version, so it may not be suitable. - PeeJay 16:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Garbage "article" on a non-notable (if it even exists) football team disguised as a userpage. I believe this is a violation of WP:USERPAGE but don't know the procedure for dealing with it - does anyone else.....? ChrisTheDude 07:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It is surely a hoax and someone using their userpage to create a hoax article. Like you though I have no idea how this would be dealt with though. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 14:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
(Extremely late response) Violations of WP:USERPAGE are dealt with by Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. - Foxhill 12:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Done :) — Ash063 22:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Your edit was reverted by a bot. Mattythewhite 23:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I've already noticed that and wrote a message to its author. — Ash063 23:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Not sure of its genuineness or notability, so I'm passing it over to those more in the know. - Dudesleeper · Talk 16:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Its real, saw a bit of it on the TV. Hardly notable though. Mattythewhite 16:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It could be integrated into the Alan Ball article, where it is already mentioned. --Malcolmxl5 20:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Article naming guidelines

What is the correct naming guideline for a manager who as far as i know didn't play. Would it be Dick Taylor (manager), Dick Taylor (football manager) or Dick Taylor (football (soccer) manager). Guidance would be appreciated. thanks Woodym555 23:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Football manager I'd think. Mattythewhite 23:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Thinking about it, in America they are called coaches aren't they for American football? Will use Dick Taylor (football manager). Woodym555 23:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Was he not a player? Most articles seem to use (footballer) even if the subject was arguably better known as a manager..... ChrisTheDude 21:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
As far as i know he wasn't but there is not much information on him about. I don't even know if he is still alive! There is an Australian rules footballer called Dick Taylor, see Dick Taylor (disambiguation) (which i had to create), to avoid confusion with him i think manager seems to be best. Incidentally who is the most famous Dick, Dick Taylor directs to the drummer, any footy fan/Villa fan will say the manager is though. If we go by guidelines: the manager is the most notable because of the number of links, though that is distorted by the managers navbox. Personally i think they are all as non-notable as each other! Woodym555 22:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Problem with article

A user has recently added the Template:Age in years and days to the List of English Football League managers by date of appointment. As part of his edit he seems to have corrupted something. Half of the templates do not work anymore including the featured list ones. In fact it is any below the Tony Mowbray insert. I removed the Tony Mowbray insert (on show preview) and the featured list worked again and a few more cite news templates worked but the majority still didn't work.

As the user has stated on the talk page that he doesn't know what has happened, i thought i would come here. (I have left a request on the Wikipedia:Help desk‎ as well) Anyone got an idea how to fix it? I have looked at everything i could think of. Thanks Woodym555 16:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a limit on the number of templates you can transclude into one page. The List of English transfers has the same problem. ArtVandelay13 20:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

More article naming confusion

I recently initiated a move request to move Jason Brown (goalkeeper) to the more sensible Jason Brown (footballer), but before it had run its course another user jumped the gun and moved it, only they moved it to Jason Brown (football (soccer) player). This was apparently done because there's also a Jason Brown (American football) and therefore just using (footballer) was deemed too confusing, but personally I think the nested parentheses look horrible. Any thoughts....? ChrisTheDude 22:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall hearing an American football player referred to as a footballer. I'd just use (footballer). WATP (talk)(contribs) 22:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Just footballer is needed. Mattythewhite 22:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I moved it to the (soccer) one because of the deletion logs where someone complained about him being called footballer. It should be soccer player to avoid the parentheses. Woodym555 23:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

No wikiproject Brazilian football?

Moved from Template talk:Football.

It amazes me that there are no wikiproject on Brazilian football as yet. I think it would be a good idea to start one as soon as possible because Brazil is the king of football. Any thoughts on this would be welcomed. --Siva1979Talk to me 03:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it should be created as a taskforce, like with England, Netherlands etc. Mattythewhite 12:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
So, should we start creating this taskforce for Brazilian football (soccer) as soon as possible? --Siva1979Talk to me 04:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes. But I'm not to sure how to make one! I think all we would do is copy the layout of another task force basically. Mattythewhite 08:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Before making one I think it would be important to make sure there is enough interest and enough people willing to take part. WATP (talk)(contribs) 17:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
That's right. so how am I going to go about doing this? --Siva1979Talk to me 04:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
I´m on holiday right now, I´d be prepared to help out with WP Brazilian football, but my knowledge of Brazilian football is insignificant compared to Argentine football. I´ll have a look in a week or so and see what needs to be done. Regerds, King of the North East 19:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
To create a new task force - basically:
1)create a new Task force page, based on one of the other Task Forces.
2)update the project navigation page (Template:WPF navigation)
3)update the Template:Football template (again just copy the entries for one of the existing Task forces)
4) create appropriate assessment categories (basically mirroring the structure in Category:WikiProject_Football_in_England_articles).
Think that's everything! Let me know if you need further help. Paulbrock 16:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The son of Lou is up for deletion here [11] His article states that he played a few games for Stoke and Huddersfield, which would make him notable, but the consensus so far is that he's not notable in his own right. Did he play league soccer? If so does this make him notable? I think it does but the current majority of editors believe that he should be deleted regardless.

Several American commentors are arguing that Football League players are 'minor league' players in their terms and so shouldn't have articles. What is going on?

Nick mallory 04:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It's been closed early by another editor per WP:SNOW. Davnel03 15:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The FAC for the History of Stoke City F.C. has been a bit quiet lately. Would anyone care to take a look and register a vote on whether it meets the criteria? Dave101talk  08:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this page no longer being used? I was just about to put Mido on it, but it looks very inactive. Davnel03 17:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I should have put something on the talk page a while ago. I've been the only one updating it for a very long time, and participation had dropped to almost nothing. I was on wikibreak for all of July (first half unplanned due to my net connection going up the spout), so it froze. Since returning I've not been inclined to update it due to the lack of activity. I think there's a place for some form of improvement drive, but not in the current guise, as there hasn't been a truly productive one since Puskas in November. Oldelpaso 18:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

User User:Cls14 has moved the Football (soccer) article to a new article he created Association football without discussing it first either here or the talk page of the article. Such a huge change surely needs discussing first and I thought that this had been discussed numerous times and the consensus was to keep it was it was with football and soccer in the title. I would simply revert it back to how it was, and ask him to discuss it here and the talk page, but I don't know how to go about reverting something like that. Is Cls14 right to make such a massive change without at least discussing it first? If not could someone look at reverting it please? thanks ♦Tangerines♦Talk 15:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

He is completely wrong, this is a very controversial move and need at least a thorough discussion. I reverted his move. --Angelo 15:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I did have a go at reverting it, but failed miserably! I am sure there has been discussion before (and if I recall correctly discussed at great length), either on here or the articles talk page, about the naming of the article and it the consensus was to have it as Football (soccer) as a compromise as even though most countries use football it has to be acknowledged that the sport is known in some countries as soccer whether or not people like that or not. ♦Tangerines♦Talk 15:23, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

There really isn't a consensus to have it at football (soccer), thats why the debate gets dragged up so often.... and will continue to do so. Most of the time the "football (soccer)" people are in the minority, but that minority happens to include admins. - The Daddy 04:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, please

Really?? C'mon... Template:Corinthians Junior Team squad. How notable is that?? —Lesfer (t/c/@) 15:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Should be deleted. As with all of those players. Youth players are not notable. Mattythewhite 15:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, Matty, that's what I think. Now, take a look at this freak show. —Lesfer (t/c/@) 15:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The proposed Brazilian football WikiProject has its work cut out. WATP (talk)(contribs) 15:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Huh? —Lesfer (t/c/@) 21:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
See a few threads up. I was commenting on the general poor state of Brazilian football articles. WATP (talk)(contribs) 21:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Yep, a real mess indeed. —Lesfer (t/c/@) 21:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that there is anything to get out of shape about. Just point out to Blgeoverlord that we have agreed upon notability standards for players and that he should bare it in mind in future when creating articles. - The Daddy 00:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Mido

Which versions better? This (the current version) or this?

2nd one; I have never seen the first version used on similar articles. Davnel03 17:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)To be honest neither of them are great. I do prefer the old version though, the large block of text to the small subheading. At least they should be === Section === headers. As an aside the WP:LEAD needs expanding as well! Woodym555 17:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Shall revert it, and might add in some headers. Mattythewhite 17:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think you should put in headers as the article is very small. Unless it's the size of Thierry Henry, which it clearly isn't headers are not needed. Nethertheless, for a player of Mido's stature, the article should be bigger than it's current size. Davnel03 17:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I've decided against doing so. But the article is in such a state. Some of the info in the othe version was quite useful, so I've added it in. But it was poorly written, so I've tried rewriting it. Mattythewhite 17:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Much better! Could do with one or two more references, but I'll try and look for them. :) Davnel03 18:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
The image in the first one is a blatant copyvio [12], not copyleft as the tag suggests. I've tagged it accordingly. Oldelpaso 18:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

That looks 100 times better than what it was yesterday! Do you think it could pass GA if I nominated it for GA-status? Davnel03 08:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope, i wouldnt pass it --Childzy ¤ Talk 10:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, how about now? Mattythewhite 17:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This just appeared

Lincoln City players/managers - should be merged to the club article? Punkmorten 09:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Almost definately. Davnel03 09:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
No, it's not a current squad article, more of a List of Lincoln City F.C. players. It needs to be renamed to something along those lines, and perhaps made a bit clearer. ArtVandelay13 10:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems to be an attempt to mirror articles like List of Arsenal F.C. players but hoping to include every single player that's ever played for the club!!!! Seems extremely ambitious. Certainly shouldn't be merged to the main article, though ChrisTheDude 10:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I would have though a catergory would be more appropriate for this. If you try to link every player/manager the list will be huge. I don't think it should be put into the main article, i think it should try and mimic the List of Arsenal F.C. players or List of Aston Villa F.C. players in that it only mentions notable players. Woodym555 10:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
It will be fine as a list, i moved to a more suitable name too --Childzy ¤ Talk 11:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
There is already the Category:Lincoln City F.C. players for all players with a Lincoln article, Category:Lincoln City F.C. managers and the generic Category:Lincoln City F.C.. Would this not merely be a duplication of these? Woodym555 12:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
The aim of a "list" article is to provide a bit more information than a category can i think. there are featured lists of some teams players so its acceptable --Childzy ¤ Talk 12:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
That list was started way too early (as a proper article, at least). It would have been prudent to start it in a sandbox first. - Dudesleeper Talk 12:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
You should try telling the creator of the article, maybe they do not know about sandboxes. Try leaving whoever made it a message --Childzy ¤ Talk 12:51, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Cosenza and other football clubs name changes

After a discussion with Angelo, I take this "problems" here to ask for everyone's opinion:

  • Rende Calcio has moved to Cosenza and changed its name to Fortitudo Cosenza, trying to fill the role of the old A.S. Cosenza Calcio that has disappeared: is it better to move A.S. Cosenza Calcio's or Rende Calcio's article to Fortitudo Cosenza? I've already moved Rende Calcio's article, but I'll change the articles if the general opinion is contrary.
  • P.D. Comiso has moved from Comiso to Vittoria and fused with Junior Vittoria creating A.C.D. Città di Vittoria. Should the article on the old F.C. Vittoria be merged with it, though the new society isn't a direct heir of the old club?

Your opinion is much appreciated. :) CapPixel 13:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a stab at this one...
  • Move Rende Calcio to Fortitudo Cosenza as it's the one club albeit with a different location and name. Keep the A.S. Cosenza Calcio article as a record of a now defunct club.
  • Merge P.D. Comiso with Junior Vittoria and create A.C.D. Città di Vittoria. Keep the F.C. Vittoria article as a record of a now defunct club.
Is that OK? --Malcolmxl5 04:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Nobody else interested? CapPixel 07:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but as I don't know anything about the clubs in question it is difficult to give an informed opinion. Are we talking franchising, or straight mergers? Oldelpaso 20:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
The Rende Calcio/Fortitudo Cosenza case is mere franchising, somewhat similar to the recent MK Dons case in England. PD Comiso instead merged with a minor team from Vittoria in order to be eligible to make the relocation (if I remind good, relocations can be made in Italy only between bordering cities, and Comiso does not border Vittoria). That is why Rende was able to move to Cosenza and Libertas Acate was denied to fully move in Modica, despite the fact they already play their home matches there. --Angelo 20:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Its a difficult one, on the Italian version of A.S. Cosenza Calcio's article has just been renamed Fortitudo Cosenza. In any event its essential that Rende Calcio's name should be featured somewhere in bold, to show that it is now part of the club.

Interestingly, the official Cosenza Calcio website has now focused its information on Fortitudo Cosenza and the club features A.S. Consenza Calcio's foundation date on its crest. Take from that what you will. - The Daddy 00:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see where the site has focused on Fortitudo Cosenza. :) The crest is still the "old" Cosenza's one. Moreover, the site has not been updated since the 2004/05 season. CapPixel 21:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Club season articles

A wise user in the AC Milan talkpage requested to update A.C. Milan 2007-08 to make it look like Chelsea F.C. 2007-2008. However, I think the latter looks pretty ugly and messy, full with plenty of unnecessary information (Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, as you surely know). As it is not the only case (see F.C. Internazionale Milano 2007-08 for another example), I'd like to find a consensus in order to change them and possibly establish a Manual of Style for such articles. Let me know your opinion. --Angelo 20:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My opinions to delete them all. But, meh, yeah there does need to be a Manuel of Style and example layout structure for all of these articles because they all look different, we need to establish some sort of consistency with these types of articles. Davnel03 20:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I would also be in favour of their deletion, but as per Davnel03, if they must stay, some sort of consistent format would make sense. - fchd 20:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
A recent AfD about some of these articles ended with a consensus in favour of keeping them. Thus, deletion appears not to be a feasible option. Much better to create a MoS for all of them. I've created some of these articles for US Palermo, and I think they are fairly good. Here is one. --Angelo 20:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a very good season page with a very good structure. One problem with these types of articles are the amount of tables in them, which is something hard to avoid unfortunately. Davnel03 20:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it's good. However, I would remove friendly matches from there, they're not "official" matches, as well as the "discipline" and "awards" sections (looks like excessive and indiscriminate info to me). Then, another issue is the attendances, which are hardly sourceable and seldom reported by the media here in Italy. --Angelo 21:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the Roverrrrrs page there is very impressive stuff. Ideally we'd have someone looking after all 92 league clubs in the same way all season, every season. It's all fact and since it's avoided deletion (I'm sure we haven't seen the last of this per WP:NOT however) then a general move for a MoS for historical seasons is in order. The Rambling Man 21:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Most of these articles seem to be overloaded with stats (which makes them very close to crossing WP:NOT#INFO), so the more prose the better in my opinion. Dave101talk  21:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

(De-indent) I've removed the friendly results from Bristol Rovers F.C. season 2006-07, per the suggestion given above, because the results are not really notable and many of them do not feature a full first-team squad. I envisage including a new section called something like Review, which would be the first section after the lead. I have started writing it in User:Gasheadsteve/Sandbox2, and will move it to the article when it is finished. — Gasheadsteve Talk to me 08:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Right so structural wise, I'm proposing that we could use the below structure:
  • Review
  • Team kit
  • Chronological list of events
  • Player details
    • Goalscorers
    • Discipline
  • Awards
  • Transfers
    • In
    • Out
  • Match results
    • League
    • Main Cup
    • 2nd Level Cup
    • Other (Champions league etc..)
  • See also
  • References

What do you guys think of this structure? Davnel03 09:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Review first, then the match results. Anything else - kit/disciplinary records/transfers should follow on from that as subsidiary information.
Perhaps the transfers section should be a sub-section of Player details. — Gasheadsteve Talk to me 12:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
There's no need for a "chronological list of events" when you already have a "review" section (by the way, who decides which events are really worth to be cited in that section?). To me it's way better just to have a "review and events" section in a whole as I did on US Palermo seasons' articles. I agree about the other paragraphes. --Angelo 21:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with this, a few paragraphs of prose is much better than an ugly list of events that doesn't flow. Dave101talk  21:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What does everyone think of the style I am attempting to use at Manchester United F.C. season 2006-07 and Manchester United F.C. season 2005-06? I think that an article about a club's season should consist of a list of the club's fixtures in that season, a significant amount of prose about the club's involvement in each competition they entered, and the club's squad and appearance/goals details for the season. Transfers and various statistics such as disciplinary records could be included at a push, but statistics should not be added indiscriminately as in Manchester United F.C. season 2007-08 and Chelsea F.C. 2007-2008, in my opinion. - PeeJay 00:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The sun symbol for the transfer-window column is a winner... - Dudesleeper Talk 10:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Input needed

I probably should have asked this a few days ago, but am I applying too much prose to my first stab at a season article (just the first section in the table of contents)? I've been writing it solely from a results page on Soccerbase but plan to incorporate information taken from elsewhere around Wikipedia during last season (as well as adding references, of course).

Maybe it's time to look around the season articles, take the most useful parts, and put together a WikiProject Football/Season articles page. - Dudesleeper Talk 16:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks OK to me. More prose is seldom a problem, normally articles have too many lists and not enough prose. I'm not generally a fan of season articles, but I realise consensus is against me in that respect. Looking at other sports, 2006-07 Toronto Raptors season is a GA, and might give some ideas. Oldelpaso 16:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
The reference section accounts for almost half the length of that article. I don't feel quite as guilty now. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Are we happy with the above article? Although it does not say so in the title, it is actually a list, not an article about referees in the Football League. As such, it appears time-sensitive, in that it seems the list will be updated to cover following seasons and not preserved in its present form. It is almost a list made up entirely of redlinks, although this may change as referee articles are added. However, notability criteria for the individual referees listed would preferably be Premier League status, so the list may not be worthy enough in some editors' view. Opinions please. Thanks. Ref (chew)(do) 00:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not, 3/4 of the referees are all redlinked. Should be AFD'd or PROD'ed. Davnel03 14:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What is up with the football squad's why is the first half different to the second? 84.66.151.81 16:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you give an example of an article in which this is occurring? Oldelpaso 17:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Accrington Stanley's and others. 84.66.151.81 17:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that earlier too. The "Position" in the left-hand table heading doesn't line up correctly with what's below it, but the template hasn't been changed since May. - Dudesleeper Talk 17:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
There was a change to {{Football squad start}} on August 17. It looks like that may be the source of the problem --Scottmsg 17:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted the unexplained edit. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry guys, that was my fault. I edited Template:Football squad player before requesting the change to Template:Football squad start to put nationality after position. I guess I just forgot to change Template:Football squad player back. Sorry again. While we're on the subject, though, why don't we make the order of the columns: Number, Position, Nationality, Name, Other?- PeeJay 18:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
People already seem to think nationality (or, rather, the flag of which) is more important than anything else. The change you mention will only encourage them. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
People are stupid then. I've seen plenty of tables in which the national flag is put right next to the player's name, particularly Top Scorer tables, etc. In fact, Template:Football squad player is one of the only places where anything comes between nationality and name. - PeeJay 18:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Right, but in this case I'd say a playing position is more important to a squad table than a nationality, hence it should be the field immediately before the name. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it acceptable?

Is this sort of "tagging" acceptable? What do you think about it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JoSilva.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Janczyk.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AlexPato.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LeandroLima.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Malecki.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Starosta.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bialkowski.jpgAsh063 19:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If he tags them all with the same licence as he has with the first one, we can just crop them to remove the watermark. - Dudesleeper Talk 19:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
All but Image:Janczyk.jpg give you the right to edit the photo mercilessly. The Janczyk had no copyright tag so have tagged it with no licence for now. Woodym555 20:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
All except for one has the same license. Yes we can crop them, but I wonder whether such tagging is accepted, declined or accepted but not recommended in wiki. — Ash063 20:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't find any specific ruling but it breaches the free-use guidelines in that it says copyright on it. That disclaimer contradicts the free-use licence underneath. Woodym555 20:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I found Wikipedia:Image use policy, where said that "user-created images may not be watermarked". So should we delete these images because of copyright watermark or crop them because of cc-by-sa-2.5 license? — Ash063 21:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, cannot help but question myself whether the GDFL tags are true. Punkmorten 21:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

We could ask the poster for clean images, if he declines could we not then crop them as dictated by th gfdl tag? Woodym555 21:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me now that if he declines then images will be deleted because of watermark and invalid copyright. — Ash063 04:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest asking the user to re-upload the images without the watermark, or otherwise delete them. It would be within our rights to crop them to remove the watermark but that would be unfair on the user who uploaded the images in good faith. Dave101talk  08:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
But what allows us to crop if copyright watermark makes cc-by-sa-2.5 license invalid? — Ash063 09:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Project banner

When articles are given the NA rating there is now a large gap between the next piece of text on that page as shown on the top of this page and on the Talk:List of Aston Villa captains page. I think this is a result of the change linked here. I think this is a worthwhile addition though so does someone know how to fix it? Thanks Woodym555 18:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

As I wrote further up the Template talk:Football page, I think it's to do with the syntax box, but nothing was ever done about it. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I notice User:Ebyabe is attempting fixes, the large space is annoying! Was your problem above or below, currently there is a large space, big enough to put another banner in, underneath the template. I can't see what the problem is though. There are no rogue spaces or gaps. Woodym555 18:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Below. I'll ask for input on the Template:Intricate template talk page. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I know WHAT is causing it, if not why. This change seems to have fixed the problem. Paulbrock 20:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Yep, seems to have fixed it. I just hope there is no knock-on effect of removing it. We will have to wait and see i suppose. Thanks!! Woodym555 20:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

List class

Quite unrelated, but whats this "list class" all about? What is a featured list; does it come under list or FA class on the rating? Mattythewhite 18:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I had never come across the list class before i reverted it on the captains page. I think featured lists use the FA class at the moment. Some projects judge lists along the same lines as articles and so it depends i think. As far as i am aware there is no standardisation across projects. Woodym555 19:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
"list" class is unofficial (not part of the WP1.0 Assessment Scheme) but commonly used in Wikiprojects, presumably because it is difficult to apply Stub/Start/B class criteria to a list. Featured lists are based on the featured list criteria. Personally I think it's messy and would stick to Stub/Start/B, then make it FA-class when it passes either the standard FA criteria or the Featured list criteria. Paulbrock 19:14, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is my prefered system, and the one we run at the moment, is it not? Currently the FA banner is used for featured lists as well. There is no specific parameter for featured lists. Woodym555 19:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Managers stats

I've just found out that soccerbase's managerial stats, which is mostly used for the managerial stats on Wikipedia, include pre-season matches. Seems quite concerning to me, especially as they don't include all of the pre-season games. For example, they are missing completely York City's friendly against Newcastle Benfield, but are including the one against Leeds. So the stats are therefore incorrect. Mattythewhite 15:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

  • To be honest I find soccerbase to be too inaccurate, especially at the lower levels. Taking Weymouth as an example, they have 12 players listed who are no longer at the club, and don't even have the first names of 3 of them. Alexrushfear 21:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
    • They do tend to be wrong sometimes, but they are generally reliable. One question, have Weymouth ever been in the League? I think that might be why soccerbase is wrong with them as York, who used to play in the League, have accurate info. Mattythewhite 22:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Fair point (no they haven't, in case it wasn't a rhetorical question), although both are still playing in the same league at the moment, so some degree of consistency in accuracy would seem logical. Alexrushfear 22:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I also found this annoying. I've e-mailed soccerbase to ask them if they'd consider either not including friendlies or providing transparency by differentiating between competitive/non-competitive totals. --Jameboy 15:31, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the friendlies have now been removed from soccerbase, so the manager stats should now tally. :-) --Jameboy 20:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It always was Germany, never "West Germany"

Please note that the Germany national football team exists since 100 years or so, always fielded by the DFB. The continuity is recognized by FIFA and UEFA. There never was a separate "West Germany national football team", only a separate East Germany football team that also used a modified flag of Germany etc. Please replace all uses of {{fb|FRG}} by {{fb|GER}} accordingly. Thanks in advance. -- Matthead discuß!     O       22:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but they were still called West Germany, and that has to be reflected. FIFA also see Russia as a continuation of USSR, Serbia of Yugoslavia etc but the old names (and other differences) need to be reflected. ArtVandelay13 22:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
No. We had these discussions already, the matter regarding Germany is clear. It was united anyway in 1990, and did not break up unlike others, so your comparison is improper. The DFB exists for over hundred years. The Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949, its number of states has grown in 1957 and 1990, similar to the number of US states having grown several times in the 20th century. There was a separate East German team for some time, but this does not affect the DFB team, which was and is team Germany. Always, no matter what names were used by some. Regarding Germany at the Olympics, there are currently even 5 designations used in hindsight, covering 4 decades, which is even more ridiculous. So please stop the bullshit. Every German team, except the separate competing ones from East Germany, was and is Germany. Besides, even the East Germans were Germans then, and are Germans now. -- Matthead discuß!     O       23:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
But the key thing is that the country (and the team), was known as West Germany - ergo, the 1974 World Champions were West Germany. All issues about Germany and West Germany being continuous are solved by the fact that West Germany nft redirects to Germany. Beyond that, you are way, way out on a limb here, you can't change history. ArtVandelay13 00:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
From 1949 to 1990, the DFB represented the country that was then known in English as West Germany. Therefore, this is reflected in the naming of the article about the team organised by the DFB in that period. - PeeJay 23:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
If someone would register the usernames User:East ArtVandelay13 and User:North PeeJay, would you two agree to be called West ArtVandelay13 and South PeeJay? Or would you agree to be called Vandelay13 or Pee in hindsight before the time your new neighbors Art and Jay moved in? Assuming good faith, I'll repeat again that an informal unofficial name for a state is meaningless for a team name, especially since it is established, on Wikipedia and elsewhere, that Germany national football team is covering the political eras of Kaiserreich, Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, and since 1949, Federal Republic of Germany. The only adjustment that is made is the display of the contemporary flag, as with many countries. The flag of Germany has not changed since 1949, BTW. On the other hand, the other German state that had existed for some time under occupation did not even call itself Germany, nor East Germany, and also distinguished itself with a different flag from Germany proper, so there is no justification to mangle the name of Germany. It is utter ridiculous to use {{fb|FRG}} for a past period anyway as the FRG and "West Germany" still exists, having been enlarged by Saarland in 1957, and the former GDR states in 1990. So, let's only use {{fb|GER}}. Besides, the Saarland football team not only nearly prevented Germany from qualifying for the 1954 WC, it was them who would have deserved to be called "West Germany", as a look on the map proves. -- Matthead discuß!     O       04:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Matthead, your argument may perhaps be true in Germany (though Deutschland would be used not Germany), however in the English-speaking world, the name used was 'West Germany'.[13][14][15]. This is en.wikipedia and so the conventions of the English-speaking world applies as does WP:COMMONNAME. And, as someone else says, you can't change history. --Malcolmxl5 06:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
History can't be changed, but proper names can and should be applied. The use of West Germany was and is sloppy at best, and offensive at worst. The proper name of the state was and is Federal Republic of Germany, it has not changed in 1990. Neither did the DFB. There is no reason why the name of the team which won the 1990 FIFA World Cup on 8 July 1990 should be different from the one used for games after 3 October 1990. Germany did not perform a vanishing act in the 1940s only to reappear from nowhere in 1990. I understand, though, that some people were happy about the lack of a single Germany, and preferred to have two or more of them to play with. "The English-speaking world" supported partitions of Germany, in 1919 and 1949, and partly opposed the idea of reunification in 1989, Margaret Thatcher's "We've beaten the Germans twice and now they're back!" being an example. The ongoing use of West Germany fits in that pattern, even though the "we've beaten the Germans twice" has yet to happen in World Cups or Euro Cups. Call the GDR East Germany, if you want, but don't name Germany according to "millions of flies can't be wrong". -- Matthead discuß!     O       17:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
"There is no reason why the name of the team which won the 1990 FIFA World Cup on 8 July 1990 should be different from the one used for games after 3 October 1990." - Yes there is - on July 8, they represented the more Western of two parts of Germany, and afterwards they represented all of Germany. There is nothing political about the use of "West Germany", it is purely practical, and frankly, the rest of your post is ridiculous. You are never going to win this argument, because you can't overturn decades of common usage, and nor can you pretend that Germany was not partitioned. ArtVandelay13 17:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

Hey, guys, I'm tracking several articles regarding youth players and I'm planning to list them all for deletion as per WP:BIO (beginning with these and these). Is there an easy way to list that amount of articles or do I really have to list one by one? —Lesfer (t/c/@) 00:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You can list multiple pages under one nomination during the AfD process, see How to list multiple related pages for deletion. Just make sure the articles you list together are similar. For example, you could have one nomination for non-notable youth team members of one club, another nomination for another club's, and so on. A recent example of a multi-article AfD is the Ryan Serrant nomination. --Scottmsg 02:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! :) —Lesfer (t/c/@) 21:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Season-by-season articles

Hi, You're doing great stuff but I'm wondering why there are (still) no season-by-season articles about soccer clubs? It doesn't seem forbidden as we can see here : 2007 Indianapolis Colts season... 40 articles a season! In football, there is so much other than statistics to write out... I can help!

82.240.207.81 09:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean? There's dozens of them! West Ham United alone have over 30. Check out Category:English football club seasons ChrisTheDude 09:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Orangina2

The user Orangina2 is really trying my patience. He/she has removed valid, licensed images from articles (such as Kieran Richardson) for no good reason, has persistently updated stats without updating "pcupdate" (Chris Kirkland just one of many examples) and hardly ever uses an edit summary to explain what they are doing. They have been told about all of these things on their talk page, in some cases on multiple occasions, but they rarely respond to talk messages. Is there anything that can be done? Not sure if WPFOOTY is the right place for my complaint, but as this person mostly updates footy articles it seemed a good place to start. Cheers. --Jameboy 12:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Every time they do it make sure that you add a warning template, this is for every instance because it acts as a record. Then go here Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism and report them and an admin will issue and appropriate length of time to block them. The vandal template are all on ma user page. happy huntin =] --Childzy ¤ Talk 12:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems not so much vandalism, more cack-handedness and/or ignorance. But then again, if they persistently ignore reasonable requests, they do need warning, so thanks for the tip. --Jameboy 12:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Its no problem but off what you're sayin you are right, they do need warning, they are vandals. One of the joys of wikipedia putting up with people like that... :p Childzy ¤ Talk 12:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Andy Gray

I've just noticed that the article on one of the UK's first million-pound players is at Andy Gray (commentator). Personally I think it should be at Andy Gray (footballer born 1955), in the same way that Sammy Lee (footballer) hasn't suddenly been moved to Sammy Lee (football manager) just because that's what he now does. Any thoughts......? ChrisTheDude 12:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

But the thing is he is very well known as a commentator now so maybe its okay? Think a consensus needs to be reached here, im neutral --Childzy ¤ Talk 12:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually i support the merge/move it makes disambiguation a lot neater. To be honest you should just go ahead and do it per WP:MOS --Childzy ¤ Talk 12:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Which merge/move....? ChrisTheDude 12:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
As Andy Gray (footballer born 1955) already exists it wont move so just gotta copy text from Andy Gray (commentator) paste it in Andy Gray (footballer born 1955) and redirect Andy Gray (commentator) to Andy Gray (footballer born 1955) then check for double redirects. i'll do if you want? --Childzy ¤ Talk 13:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • You never ever move a page by doing a copy-and-paste, that's a massive WP no-no. Pages must only ever be moved via the "move" tab at the top. The fact that the redirect page already exists is irrelevant, the two would simply "swap places" ChrisTheDude 13:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Last time i tried to move a page to one that already existed it wouldnt let me... strange, i'll let you sort it oooout =] --Childzy ¤ Talk 13:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
If there's edit histories at both locations, the move won't work. It will need an admin to sort out. - fchd 14:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You need to go to WP:RM and list it there although a discussion should take place on the talk page first. Cut and paste mergers should never be done and if you find one list it at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Cutting and pasting separates the page history from the text of the article. Woodym555 14:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've moved it. Incidentally, the part of the article about his punditry needs some serious cleanup. Oldelpaso 17:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Can somebody can keep an eye on the players of Darlington F.C., somebody has deleted all of the SoccerBase links. 84.67.205.147 18:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Again? That happened before. I'll revert them. Mattythewhite 18:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Player career statistics section

There seems to be some inconsistency with the Career Statistics section in player articles (I'm talking about the section that comes after the prose, showing performance in all competitions, rather than the top-right infobox). Adam Boyd and Emile Heskey are both designated Good Articles, but Boyd has most recent season first while Heskey's is oldest season first. Are we OK to freestyle with these sections? Wouldn't it be better to have a standard? I'd favour oldest first to match the Infobox, although the other way up would facilitate comparison with Soccerbase. --Jameboy 21:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think that the oldest season should come first. And tbqh, who cares about comparing it with Soccerbase? That site is often wrong and incomplete anyway, in my experience. - PeeJay 22:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Blgeoverlord

Hey, guys! Would you please take a look at Blgeoverlord (talk · contribs) edits? Despite the fact he'd already been told by me and admin Carioca, he just won't follow wikipolicies like WP:NAMING and WP:BIO. Besides, his edits are reckless, he is constantly moving articles and don't fix double redirects or template links. I've warned him about it but he simply ignores messages in his talk page. —Lesfer (t/c/@) 22:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

List of football players with dual nationality

I started this article with good intentions a long time ago, but it is now full of unverified and (probably) untrue additions. I propose:

  1. Change in format, from subheadings to bullet points, to make the page more pleasing to the eye.
  2. Deletion of all subpages, so that we can have one page which we can monitor.

I've started the process on my subpage, which includes removal of unverified claims and 'red' players, addition of references, and the change in format, but want to get people's opinions before I continue.

Any thoughts? GiantSnowman 15:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It was certainly made in good intentions, but has gone way out of hand. Punkmorten 14:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm really sorry that your efforts were bootless, but now the article is totally unacceptable. I've already wrote on the talk page, but that's not a problem for me to repeat. In the very first post you said: "We should include players who: 1) can trace their origins to a foreign country, 2)have gained nationality after living in a foreign country, 3)were born in a foreign country." Somehow you missed the fact that nationality(citizenship) and etchnicity are two big differences. Andrei Kanchelskis has dual Russian/UK citizenship and had USSR citizenship, but his ethnicity is Lithuanian/Ukrainian. It is absolutely inadmissible for encyclopedia to mix this two terms up or represent ethnicity of somebody with a national flag. Moreover, the fact that somebody was born in a foreign country have nothing to do with neither citizenship nor ethnicity. These cases are very different and must be included in different articles, not in the single article, especially the article called "List of football players with dual nationality". Moreover, there are players who has a citizenship of three countries. Moreover, "players who had dual citizenship" and "players who has dual citizenship" are different players. Moreover, what if somebody had a citizenship and then took another citizenship instead? This case is different from all. Moreover, such lists make sense only if every player is provided with multiple reliable rules, otherwise it's impossible to distinguish true from false. To make a long story short, very sad to say, the existence of current article is unreasonable. I also saw your subpage. I found many very strange statements like "Walter Samuel is Jewish" with a link to some forum. I missed the point of this because forums are absolutely unreliable sources. So, it seems to me now that a possible deletion of the article would be the best way not to mislead people. Are you agree? — Ash063 12:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, but not entirely. For starters, the article should NOT be deleted. Plus, etnicity can equal nationality - if we continue to use your example of Kanchelskis, then if his grandparents were Lithuanian or Ukranian then under FIFA rules he could have represnted that nation at football. However, I agree that my original qualifiers were wrong, and have started making amends, by removing players and referencing nationalities, as can be seen on my subpage. And as for Samuel and other Jewish players - check out this website for referencing. GiantSnowman 21:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Hm, nationality is an unclear term. It can mean both ethnicity and citizenship. And I have difficulty distinguishing football citizenship and real citizenship, can you explain that FIFA rule? It seems to me now that the main problem is in the name of the article, "List of football players with dual nationality". Firstly, it states smth about real citizenship instead of football citizenship, and secondly, it states smth about facts in present instead of possibilities in past (Kanchelskis could have represented Lithuania). Consider renaming the article to something like "List of players that could have represented several nations at football". And what about creating not just a list, but a table with information about why a player could have represented that nation, whether Football Federation asked a player about that and why he rejected that. Sounds interesting to me. What do you think? As for Samuel, I checked that site and found nothing about Samuel on it, so still no reason to claim that he is Jewish. — Ash063 02:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
The FIFA rule stipulates that a player can represent any nationality that his parents/grandparents were. back to Samuel, I also checked that website and couldn't find him, but he's definitely Jewish - these pages are some which say so [16], [17], [18] GiantSnowman 11:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
How can you trust such kind of sources? And it seems that you are not interested in renaming and creating a table, right? — Ash063 12:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • A table - there are too many players to make a table viable, so I would oppose it.
  • Rename - what do you suggest? GiantSnowman 17:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I mean article name should fit its content, small notice at the beginning of the article is not enough for exclusion of confusion. — Ash063 19:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews link

See the top of Fußball-Bundesliga 2007-08. A Wikinews link to a point-of-view article by a Bayern Munich fan isn't really permissible, is it? - Dudesleeper Talk 19:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I would delete that if I was you. - PeeJay 19:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Done. Expect it to return in the near future, however. - Dudesleeper Talk 12:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
As predicted, it's now back, and it has multiplied into the articles 2007-08 FC Bayern Munich season and FC Bayern Munich. Apparently a two-point lead is "a stranglehold" in German football. - Dudesleeper Talk 18:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I support your removal of the wikinews links, though for this week I'm not going to argue with a two point lead being a stranglehold ;-) Oldelpaso 20:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Season transfer category

I would like a "Category:2007-08 Football transfers" or something, so you would be able to jump between transfer pages for different leagues. Is there someone else who think that would be a good idea? Sebisthlm 12:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


Editing squad "boxes"

Sorry to bother everybody again, but it seems there are a lot of squad boxes (or whatever they´re called) at the bottom of player pages that aren't up to date, and I don't seem able to update them. I have searched for some sort of guide on how to do it, but I can't find any. Cheers! Sebisthlm 12:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

They're located at Template:(Club name) squad, e.g. Template:Arsenal F.C. squad. Dave101talk  12:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
You may find this useful: Category:Football squad templates, regards,King of the North East 12:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Also, if you select Edit from the top link, you get a list of templates under the edit box, and you can click to the squad template from there. ArtVandelay13 12:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for all the tips. I'll have to give it a go. Sebisthlm 15:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Aldershot et al

When a club goes out of business, their league record is expunged from the record books. Does this apply to a player's goals against the club too? For example, Tony Rodwell scored a hat-trick against Aldershot in 1991, and a(n unsourced) note in his article states that this too was expunged from the record books. If anyone has a definitive answer, please let me know, because it would mean a few statistical changed around 'pedia. Thanks. - Dudesleeper Talk 17:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it really true that a club's league record is expunged when they go out of business? I find it hard to believe that the FA would go to such lengths and make it look like the club never existed, tbh. - PeeJay 17:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It's the games already played during the season that the club goes out of business (if it happens mid-season) that are often wiped from the record. Not a club's entire existence. ArtVandelay13 17:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Well that makes sense then. And also answers the question above. - PeeJay 19:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, all league matches involving that club and thus goals scored in them are considered void. Alluded to here for Phil Stant. Could be worse. Denis Law once scored six in a cup match only for it to be abandoned. To add insult to injury he finished on the losing side when the match was replayed. Oldelpaso 20:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Help requested on Olympic football articles

User:SndrAndrss, who is indefinitely banned from editing on Wikipedia for past disruptive behaviour, has asked: Can you add the new match reports for all the olympic football matches from 1984 to 2004 that would have been fine. I am posting the request here on his/her behalf in case anybody wants to take up this task. Andrwsc 00:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

National team pages

What articles should & shouldn't we have for national teams? Obviously the main team for both men's and women's, and well as 'B' sides, but what about youth teams - I think we should only have Under-21. Any other thoughts? GiantSnowman 23:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I think a general Youth article for levels under-21 would be useful. But not one each. ArtVandelay13 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 00:04:17, August 19, 2007 (UTC).
We now have England national under-20 football team, England national under-19 football team, England national under-18 football team, England national under-17 football team and England national under-16 football team, and I can't say I like it. Punkmorten 08:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm torn between merge tags and prod tags. Oldelpaso 20:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
"A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." This is satisfied by most of these teams, for example England U18. Similarly, seeing as there are entire websites dedicated to describing youth team results, having articles on the teams themselves is no worse than having articles on reserve teams, especially seeing as your average youth international match is actually more notable than your average reserve team match (have you ever seen a reserve team match broadcast on Eurosport?) ugen64 16:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Using common names of football clubs?

Sporting Lisbon

Sporting Clube de Portugal is generallly known in the English press as Sporting Lisbon. On Wikipedia we use common names not necessarily the strictly correct names to enable people to understand what is going on. Miguelzinho is going through many articles changing Sporting Lisbon to Sporting Portugal. Does the project have any views on this, please? TerriersFan 14:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Revert it, as you say - common names should be used. WATP (talk)(contribs) 14:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
No. Being "common name" does not make it right. Outside the UK, clubs are often referred to as "Arsenal London" or "Everton Liverpool". These are not right either. Sporting Clube de Portugal would be the most appropriate name to use. Let's not perpetuate others' errors. - fchd 18:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree - Sporting Lisbon is used by an overwhelming majority of English language media, and thus should be the term we use. Oldelpaso 19:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
This is the English Wikipedia and the common name as used by the English language media should be used. I do not see that can be denied that 'Sporting Lisbon' is the name used by English language media for this club. --Malcolmxl5 05:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with fchd here. I dislike seeing "Sporting Lisbon" written in articles. "Sporting CP" or even just "Sporting" would be more appropriate. - PeeJay 18:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I've never heard Everton or Arsenal being referred to that way, so its not "often" thats just a lie. Chandlertalk 00:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I know Arsenal London is used quite often in Germany - [19]. ugen64 16:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Inter Milan vs Internazionale

FC Internazionale Milano is well-known as Inter Milan or Internazionale. However, Internazionale is common used by UEFA, so what do you think using Internazionale in UEFA article, and Inter Milan at other article, or should we merge it? KyleRGiggs 04:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Use Internazionale in Italian and European Cup related articles. But for example if they're mentioned in an article which purely has nothing to do with Italy (say Oxford United Stars F.C. article) then use "Inter Milan". - The Daddy 11:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I would say use Internazionale in all instances. Hardly anyone in Italy refers to the club as Inter Milan, and IMO we should try to phase out the usage of that name. - PeeJay 12:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I would also say that the usage of the name "Inter" by itself would be OK, but never "Inter Milan". - PeeJay 12:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Surely we should use the most commonly used name, per WP:COMMONNAME, and in the English-speaking world the most commonly used name (even if it's technically wrong) is "Inter Milan". Even the BBC use it..... ChrisTheDude 21:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixture lists

Someone has added this fixture list to the Blyth Spartans article and is updating it with results. MoS issues aside, is this copyright violation? Dbam Talk/Contributions 17:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Doubt it, but it is blatant recentism in a club article. This content should be included in a Blyth Spartans A.F.C 2007-08 season article, if at all.
A similar list appeared in Chasetown F.C. last season. I stripped it out into a separate article, which promptly got put up for AfD and deleted in a snowball vote..... ChrisTheDude 21:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Fixture lists are in fact copyright of the league that produced them. I emailed the Football League about this quite recently. The reply was quite informative:

The issue of copyright in fixture lists was resolved by the High Court in the reported case of The Football League Limited v Littlewoods Pools Ltd. A copy of the case report can be found under case reference [1959] 2 All ER 546. The simple rational for the court's decision was that The League was entitled to copyright in the chronological list as a result of the fact that it was produced by the skill, labour, judgment and ingenuity of The League. A fixture is no longer copyrighted when the match has kicked off it is now a matter of public record and history. The League also acquires further intellectual property rights through the Database Directive.

--Jameboy 17:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Anyone know what the situation is for Spain? If it is the same as in Britain, then La Liga 2007/2008 schedule is a copyvio. Oldelpaso 17:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't be certain on this but I don't think Spain's fixture lists are copyrighted. World Soccer Magazine publishes a list of fixtures from the Spanish league every year, but they may have paid to use them, rather than the fixtures being free to use. - PeeJay 18:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)