Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Notability

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


WikiProject on Football
Main pages
Main project talk
Task forces and sub-projects talk
Football portal talk
New articles talk
Cleanup articles talk
Football AID
Article improvement drive talk
  Previous collaborations talk
  Featured collaborations talk
  Previous nominations talk
Football Assessment
Assessment Department talk
  Assessment log talk
Manual of style
Club articles talk
  Club templates talk
National team articles talk
  National team templates talk
National association articles talk
  National assn. templates talk
Competition articles talk
Match articles talk
Player articles talk
Stadium articles talk
Other
Category structure talk
Notability criteria talk
Template list talk
Sources and links talk
Participants talk
Project milestones talk
Did You Know? archive talk

Please use this page to discuss which football-related subjects should be considered notable enough to have their own page on Wikipedia. While we have no more right than anyone else here to decide that something ought to be deleted, the opinion of a group of people who know about the subject should carry some weight, and I think that some guidelines on this would be as useful as the stuff at Wikipedia:Notablity/*. Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 06:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] General

I'd suggest going for an approach where we decide on what makes an article definitely notable enough for Wikipedia and allow for the possiblity of other articles qualifying as well. So for example something like "all Italian clubs that have ever played in Serie A or Serie B are notable enough, and other clubs might be". Saying clubs that meet certain criteria qualify and no others do would cause problems as there are bound to be some with exceptional circumstances. Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 06:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Nonetheless, let's not forget to improve already existing articles by the way. Julien Tuerlinckx 18:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be too much debate on here any more. Would anyone have any objections if I declared what we've got so far as consensus and put it on the project page? Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 13:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my opinion on this is that just about anything can go in as long as there's a realistic chance of it ever becoming a decent article of roughly three decent-sized paragraphs or more; saying "only the most famous players/clubs/etc" should be allowed to go in seems pointless to me. It won't hurt anything if a few lower-level players who are of interest to people have well-written articles; I just don't think it's too likely for pub teams and most non-league players: I've created content on several non-league players and can only find enough citable info for a paragraph or two for each, so I'd rather see those merged by club. I haven't got into this discussion with the intention of saying "Wikipedia's running out of space so you can't create an article on that guy"; I really want to establish some guidelines that say "anything above this level should be allowed an article" so we don't get AfDs on notable players/clubs/etc like we had last week with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wembley F.C. Someone putting every Football Conference club on AfD because they thought the league was too low would waste a lot of time (and possibly cause a lot of friction) and that's the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid. Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 03:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clubs

  • To me we should have a "maximum" number of clubs per country as said Johan and it would depend on the "level of football" played in the country (at a first glance, i would have 3 levels). It is clear that this maximum should increase with time/seasons since we will never delete teams from wikipedia and some teams will become "notable" enough in a few seasons. This maximum is also only valid for the current teams as defunct teams must be more numerous in countries of the same level depending on the year the league was created. For instance, I created an article for each club that had played at least one season in the first division (since 1895) which makes 55 teams (if you don't take the present Jupiler League teams into account), 25 of which are now defunct. If you apply the same criterion to, say Sweden (that plays at the same level as Belgium but whose league was created in 1925), we will have less defunct teams and thus more space for current teams which wouldn't be ok.Julien Tuerlinckx 18:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I give a try: for level 1 countries (England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands and France for Europe) I would say 300/350 clubs (which make approximatively the first 8 levels in English football). For level 2 countries (Belgium, Norway, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland,...) I would say about 150 clubs and for level 3 countries (Luxembourg, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Albany, Latvia,...) around the 50/100 clubs but I know few about football in those countries. What do you think?Julien Tuerlinckx 18:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • In my opinion, it would include too many minor teams. As I told on the other discussion, we should include only teams with some actual relevance. The first 4 or 5 levels of football in "1st class" country (commonly the "pro" divisions) would be enough. For minor leagues like Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino, we should just include the top division teams: who knows about 2nd division teams of Moldavia?!? --Angelo 19:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Things which I think would class a club as notable include (but are not necessarily limited to):
    • Being professional
    • Having competed in a continental competition
    • Regularly attracting attendances over an as yet undecided level Oldelpaso 19:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a "quota" of club is the way forward - who decides which country deserves having 100 teams, while another gets 500? I think the best way forward is to split the criteria into "definitely notable", "probably notable", and "definitely not notable" like CTAOGN suggests and we allow a certain amount of flexibility. That way all clubs are judged on the same criteria and are equal regardless of nationality, and we don't get too bound up in intricacies. Although it is difficult to compare e.g. Spain and Albania's leagues there are some criteria: professionalism, participation at the highest level, and attendances have been mentioned as good indicators of notability, so I thought of the following guidelines. Feel free to tear this apart, though:

Definitely notable

A club is definitely notable if it meets any of the following criteria:

  • Clubs which have been fully professional for a significant time of their history (i.e. decades)
  • Have featured at any time in their country's top division
  • Have featured in their country's cup final (or semi-finals?)
  • Have participated in continental-level competitions (UEFA/CONMEBOL/AFC etc.)
  • Attract over 1,000(?) paying spectators on a regular basis
Probably notable

A club is probably notable if it meets more than one of the following criteria:

  • Semi-professional clubs that compete in the division below professional ones.
  • Clubs that have contributed national team players (maybe a minimum number?)
  • Clubs that a highly notable player (10+ caps for a top-level country, or 100+ appearances for a top-level club) has played for, for a significant period (e.g. one year or more).
  • Clubs that regularly participate in their country's senior cup competition.
Definitely not notable

A club that meets any' of the following criteria is definitely not notable:

  • Clubs that do not participate in their country's senior cup competition.
  • Clubs that do not normally charge an entrance fee for spectators.

Further suggestions welcome. Qwghlm 12:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


Not that I don't agree with you but I just noticed that the definitely not notable section misses some criteria. I remember having attended a 4th Brabant league game a few years ago, and this is the very last level in Belgian football. I had to pay some euros to enter the stadium and the club do/did participate to the senior cup competition (every club in Belgium takes part to the Belgian Cup). So for this particular country, the definitely not notable set is empty. But I just can't figure out another criterium at the moment. Julien Tuerlinckx 16:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
About the who decides which country is from which level I think this is no problem. For European teams, have a look at the UEFA ranking for club competitions: this hardly changes over the years (I mean the big 6 are still the same, and the bad countries too). We could however have a problem with non-EUR teams but I'm sure we can make an "objective" distinction between countries. I don't mean to give a too strict upper bound to the number of clubs for each country, we may have exceptions. And by the way, I don't get what you're gonna do with probably notable clubs. Should we include them or not? Or delete them or not? Thanx, Julien Tuerlinckx 09:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Even in Europe, trends change - for example far fewer clubs from Eastern Europe now make it to the later stages of the Champions League than they did in the old European Cup. I don't think it's a bad idea to have numbers and stature of the country as a rough guide - e.g. "There are 500 clubs in Moldova higher in the league than this one, so this probably means this club is not notable", but I think it is very hard to quantify it as a definite rule.
Re: Probable notability. Perhaps this is a better way of putting it: If a club meets any one of the "probable" criteria, then there is a weak case for it being retained. The more "probable" criteria it demands, the greater its claim to notability. If it only meets one, and cannot meet the others, then deletion or merging into another article is probably the best idea. What do you reckon? Qwghlm 11:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't really agree with angelo (sorry). First of all the English teams from the first 8 levels already have an article, and I think these should not be deleted from wikipedia. For minor leagues, I admit that few know about 2nd division but isn't that what an encyclopaedia is all about? I would be quite interested to read articles for at least the first 2 levels in this country, who wouldn't? Even if you don't read them all, I think this should belong here. Anyway, generally the first two levels make only a few teams so I admit the 50/100 was maybe too much.
    • Don't worry! If club articles already exist, they should not be deleted at all. --Angelo 21:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

About what Qwghlm said, I think this is an idea, but then we'll have to add some criteria so that it's easier to meet more than one. For instance, I'm wondering which Latvian club would meet one condition for probable notablity. Some conditions we could add:

  1. Team with 60+ years of existence
  2. Team that played in the second division at least for a decade
  3. Team currently playing in a division 2 levels below a division where the "current teams" section is all blue

Finally, I would love to know to which level teams are said "pro" in other countries (than Belgium). This argument is often cited but I'm quite sure no one knows what it means in other countries than his. Julien Tuerlinckx 20:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  • In Italy, the pro divisions are from Serie A to Serie C2. --Angelo 21:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • In Belgium if being "pro" is having all its first squad players having no other job as footballer, 16/18 teams are pro in first div. and maybe 1/2 2nd div teams are also "pro". Julien Tuerlinckx 21:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Qwghlm's list looks ok but I'd change "definitely not notable" to "probably not notable" or something similar. I can think of a couple (but only a couple) of junior clubs that have produced enough international players to be interesting enough to have an article (Senrab, Wallsend Boys Club) so I'd prefer it if the way it was worded allowed for exceptions. Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 01:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
How about changing Qwghlm's "definitely not notable" to "probably not notable" as above, and inserting a phrase such as "The above list is not exhaustive, but exceptions should provide clear evidence for notability", or some phrase which makes it clear pub teams and the like are not notable. Oldelpaso 11:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Question: I have a discussion with another editor over Eintracht Frankfurt U23. I had redirected it to Eintracht Frankfurt, he wants to keep the article. I would like some input from the people here to know a) if this particular youth/reserve team is notable (main claim to notability seems to be that they play in the highest amateur division), and b) if reserve teams of major teams in general are notable enough for their own article. I would like to keep those two questions separate, if possible. Fram 20:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Opinions vary. An AfD for Liverpool's reserves ended with no consensus. My opinion is that mentioning the Eintracht Frankurt U23 team in the main Eintracht Frankfurt article and redirecting would be the way to go, others may disagree. Oldelpaso 20:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Judging by various AfD outcomes and discussions on this Project, a) A youth/reserve team is generally not notable and b) reserve teams of major teams are generally not notable. This depends on the situation though. If reserve teams play in the national league system, at a level where other clubs would be considered notable, the reserve team has some claim of notability that might make it deserve a separate article (this goes for Spain for example), while in countries where the reserve teams play in reserve leagues, the team generally has no claim that makes it notable (this goes for England for example). Seeing that Eintracht Frankfurt U23 plays at a relatively low national level (Oberliga, right?), without any major notable events, I personally do not think the team deserves a separate article. Either way, the article consists mainly of a squadlist with links to players that do not deserve articles, so there is little point of having a separate article. I suggest you post the question at the main talk page to get more input. – Elisson • T • C • 20:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one editor Fram talks about.My point of view is that the article is worth keeping because the team not only plays in the 4th German tier and has several honours but also played in the Regionalliga (3rd tier).I've listed some arguments for the keeping here -> Talk:Eintracht Frankfurt U23 Regards.-Lemmy- 11:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Players

The closest thing I've found to an existing standard is this, at Wikipedia:Notability (people):

Sportspeople who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in an individual professional sport, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States. Articles about first team squad members who have not made a first team appearance may also be appropriate, but only if the individual is at a club of sufficient stature that most members of its squad already have articles.

Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 06:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite Ok with that "standard". But I think a good start is to fill the red links in the following articles:
  • the premier leagues top scorers or individual awards former winners for each country
  • most capped players section for each national team
  • noted players and current squad sections in clubs articles
  • international competitions squad articles (like Football World Cup 1994 (squads))
Julien Tuerlinckx 18:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Julien about the need to make first articles of the players he suggested. I don't agree at all about the sentence "sportspeople who have played in a fully professional league". Guys, even Serie C2 is professional! According to me, we should accept just footballers who have been capped for any national team, plus the ones who have ever played in a top division of a "1st class" country. --Angelo 19:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • What do you mean by "first class" country? AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 01:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think Qwghlm's rule of thumb of 100 appearances for former players is a sensible one Oldelpaso 19:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This probably applies more to the Club template or the non-league subproject, but it could be a good idea to say "For non-professional players, consider using a summary style in the appropriate club article (see F.C. United of Manchester for an example of how to do this)." Oldelpaso 11:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Youth players

I disagree with the current criteria of notability of youth footballers, since it seem to stipulate first team appearences.

I would suggest that:

1. Being a member of a youth international team (such as Gavin Hoyte, Fran Mérida and Nacer Barazite of Arsenal) merits notability in it's own right, or at least under under the criteria of athlete notability p2: "Competitors who have played or competed at the highest level in amateur sports" (or in analogy thereof).

2. Prominent members of important youth academies merits notability in the same way as above.

3. Very promising players can be notable because of their talent, regardless of if their talent has been realised or not. Even if their talent isn´t realised they still can be notable as "the talent that never delivered". Using a simple linguistic definition of "notability" would mean the more well known the player is, the more notable he is. And there surely are youth players that are better known than lower level players, even if the latter has played for the first team.

It can´t seriously be argued that a player who has made a couple of appearences for a League 2 team is more notable than a player such as Bojan Krkic, Giovani dos Santos, Fran Mérida etc wich most probably will be playing first team football (if not already be big stars) within the next years. Look at the attention G. dos Santos' selection of national team or proposed transfer has attracted in the football community. Or look at Theo Walcott who was included in the english WC squad without having played for the Arsenal first team. He never played during the WC, so before his first team debut at Arsenal, was it only his appearences for Southampton in the Championship that merited an article about him? Surely not!

My point isn't that membership of a u17 national squad automatically constitutes notability. My point is that there are youth players that may haven't yet broken in to the first team at a big club such as Arsenal or Barcelona, but nevertheless still are more notable than a player that may have appeared for a low-level first team such as Accrington. The requirement of first team football shouldn't be carved in stone. Sebisthlm 16:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC) P.S. ""fran merida" arsenal" generated 26,400 hits on Google, ""robert grant" accrington" generated 306!

I disagree. "Will probably be playing first team football" doesn't cut it. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. A youth player could break his leg and disappear without ever making the grade. Many simply peak early and fade into obscurity without playing professionally - even if they play internationally at junior level. To use the club I know best as an example, Manchester City had a highly-rated young striker called Dorryl Proffitt, who played for England at every level up to under-19, including the 2003 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship. He was tipped to be a big star in the Premier League, but he never made the first team, and has since played for semi-pro teams such as Altrincham, Leek Town and Crawley Town, well below the bar for notabilty. As an aside, Theo Walcott's article was created in October 2005, shortly after he made his first team debut for Southampton, a fully professional team in a fully professional league. Oldelpaso 17:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I ought to add that I don't think 2 or 3 appearances for a basement side is that notable either given that there isn't normally enough verifiable non-trivial information to generate more than a substub, unlike a player who has played regularly for a season or two at that level. Oldelpaso 17:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Needless to say I completely agree with Oldelpaso. The major Italian example of youth player who failed to make his breakthrough is Diego Maradona's Neapolitan illegittimate son, Diego Sinagra, who played in S.S.C. Napoli and Genoa's youth systems (I am unsure but he could even have received a few international appearances at the youth level), but never made a single professional appearances and now is a backup player in a minor Eccellenza team after having been part of a football-related TV reality show. --Angelo 17:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your arguments! I think both of you slightly miss my point though. As I write in the last paragraph above, I don't think membership of a national youth squad automatically merits notability. I merely suggest that there are prominent youth players that are better known, more notable, footballers than lower-level first-team footballers. Both of your arguments, if I understand them correctly, seem to be circular arguments; youth players without first team football (however well known or much talked about) are not notable because they haven´t played first team football. I understand that such footballers don´t meet the current criteria of notability, wich is precisely the reason why I appose the criteria. I think this question has to do with the overall aim with football articles (or articles in general). People hearing about a certain footballer may want to look him up in an encyclopedia. The more people wanting to look a certain player up - the greater reason to actually include an article about that player. I think there are a lot of people reading or hearing about Fran Mérida in the news that want to look him up on Wikipedia, not even contemplating whether he has or hasn´t débuted for Arsenal. And I think those people are a lot more than those who want to look up Robert Grant of Accrington even if he has played for the first team. Sebisthlm 11:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC) Oh, and I remember Dorryl Proffitt. I wonder what ever happened to him? I really ought to look him up on Wikipedia...
First of all - Diego Sinagra has an article but according to the criteria, he is non-notable, right? The Eccellenza is not a professional league... and second of all this criteria seems to be arbitrary and only applies to European football players. The policy regarding American basketball players, for example, allows high school stars (that is, players who have never made an appearance for a professional team or even a college team - which is still amateur!) to have articles: Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, Donte Greene. These players are considered notable simply on the basis that they have the potential to become star pro basketball players within 2 years! And yes, I have read WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS and I know this by itself is not a suitable basis to argue against the current criteria.
But I don't understand what the point of the hard-and-fast guideline is. I think it's quite true that IF a player has made a first-team appearance for a professional club THEN he is notable, but I don't think the converse is true (IF a player has not made a first-team appearance, THEN he is not notable). It's simple logic I learned in 7th grade - in order for a statement's converse to be true, then its inverse must be true as well. Is that to say then, every single notable footballer has made a first-team appearance for a professional club? No - you even pointed out one example of one yourself.
Also, all that criteria establishes is that the player is a good footballer, at the current time, relative to the rest of his team (i.e. he is considered good enough to play in the first team) - not that he is notable! What I am arguing is that there are plenty of notable footballers in the world that are, for whatever reason, not good under these limited criteria - and one of these reasons is that the player has joined a really good football club (like Arsenal). For example, compare Michael Jordan to Vito Mannone. In June 2006, their stats were - Jordan (2 first-team appearances in League Two) vs. Mannone (0 first-team appearances). Obviously Jordan was notable and Mannone was not, right? But wait - the only reason Jordan made those appearances was because he was released by Arsenal - i.e. that Wenger thought Mannone was a better football player than Jordan! So essentially the player got an article because he was not very good at his job, using this criteria to call him "more notable". (obviously now both of them have made first-team appearances so there is no issue any more)
And of course as an Arsenal fan, I have to ask - name the last player Arsene Wenger signed (or, for that matter, graduated from the youth academy under his tenure) who reached the age of 25 without making a first-team appearance? :-D ugen64 23:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Sinagra is notable because of non-footballing reasons (he is Diego Maradona's son, he was part of a TV show and he is occasionally featured on Italian media). Don't talk to me about this stuff: I think the exact opposite than you: should I decide, I would consider a player notable only in case he played regularly at a fully professional level. --Angelo 23:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
One point which has not yet been raised is that youth team matches, even of big clubs like Arsenal, get negligible media coverage and are attended by the proverbial two men and a dog. A pro club at a low level such as Accrington Stanley (despite being probably the smallest team in the English League), have their matches covered by national press e.g Telegraph, Independent, BBC. This does not automatically correlate to player notability, but it gives an idea of the relative standing of youth football compared to lower league first team football. Oldelpaso 09:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
The FA Youth Cup says: "The highest attendance at an FA Youth Cup match was 38,187 for the first leg of the Arsenal v Manchester United semi-final at the Emirates Stadium on 14 March 2007." First of all - how many Accrington Stanley players have played at the Emirates Stadium? Second, how many have ever (in their entire life) played in front of 35,000+ fans? Incidentally I notice we don't have an article about Jay Simpson, the first player to score a hat trick at Emirates Stadium... and it's true, youth team and reserve team matches don't get lots of attendance but it's hard to beat some of the attendance "records" set at the Stadio Delle Alpi in recent years :-D
And as the for "negligible media coverage" - when I talk about players like Fran Merida being notable, I am talking about their performances at the youth international level. I agree that players who only appear for club team reserves and U-18 squads are not inherently notable, but I am arguing that performances at a major tournament (like the U-17 World Cup, UEFA U-17 championship, etc.) can make an otherwise obscure player notable! For example Arsenal paid 2.5 million pounds to Chivas to buy Carlos Vela after his performance at the U-17 World Cup - before he had ever played for the Chivas first team! ugen64 01:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Oldelpaso's point about media coverage is interesting, and it may contain part of the reason why we disagree. I think it is a fair point to refer to media coverage when discussing notability. Oldelpaso's statement that Accrington Stanley get national media attention is obviously true, but it also suggests that we perhaps look upon football from slightly different angles. Of course British national media reports on local British football. No disrespect to the Nationwide, but the more regional the media, the more regional the news, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Accrington papers (if there are any) write more about Accrington Stanley than about AC Milan or Barcelona. Even if BBC reports on a pile-up on the M5 it doesn't exactly make it world news. My point is this: even if Robert Grant of Accrington actually is a better known player in British football than Fran Mérida (which I still doubt), he certainly is not in the global football community. In global media I can assure you that it has been said and written a lot more about Mérida than about Grant (as my Google experiment above would suggest). I can assure you that there are a lot of football fans outside Britain who know a lot about British football, perhaps wondering when Mérida is going to get his début, who have never even heard of Accrington Stanley, let alone Robert Grant. I think this boils down to the question who we write Wikpedia articles for. Is the articles about English football exclusevly aimed for English football fans supporting their local team or do we also write for people with a boader international interest, who perhaps is more interested in international youth tournaments and the reserve teams of the super clubs, than of League 2? I think Wikipedia would be better off if we write from both of these angles. Sebisthlm 10:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
As a tertiary source, it is not up to us to guess which players will or will not make it to the first team. To the question of who we are writing for, the answer is neither of those suggested, but for the general reader, who doesn't necessarily know the first thing about the subject of an article. Is there a systematic bias? Yes. English football is in a more developed state on Wikipedia than a lot of other countries are due to the number of editors from England. But Arsenal are also a club in England, and are thus favoured by systematic bias - the areas which get neglected are those such as South America - the squads of South American teams tend to have a number of redlinks, even the likes of Boca Juniors. (by the way, if it was up to me, Robert Grant would be deleted too - you can't write a decent article about someone who has made one appearance). Anyway, I digress, and we're not any closer to reaching a consensus (not that this page carries any weight, its WP:BIO that counts). Articles ought to be judged by their sources. If you think you could make a decent article on Merida based on reliable sources why not make one in your userspace, so that something of substance can be judged rather than a concept, and take it to deletion review. Oldelpaso 18:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I know that WikiPedia is written for the general reader. But, as you say yourself, we can´t know of the interest or knowledge of this general reader. My point was that you shouldn't write articles from just one point of view, but try to bring up different angles to cater to as many different interests and knowledges possible. If we only wrote articles for people without any knowledge or interest on the subject WikiPedia wouldn't be very big. As for my argument on media coverage it wasn't aimed at the systematic bias. I was only pointing out that basing notability on media coverage would depend on the nature of the media itself. Regional media coverage would indicate regional notability (perhaps not enough for Wikipedia), whereas global media coverage would indicate global notability. However, this discussion never seems to evolve beyond the circular argument that we shouldn't scrap the requirement of first team football for youth players since we can't know if they will ever play for the first team, and changing the criteria for notability isn't necessary; youth players not fulfilling it aren't notable enough to merit an article, since they do not meet the current criteria. Meanwhile, we have a notability criteria that says that a player who have made one appearence for a League 2 team, possibly a couple of years ago, is notable, while a youth World Champion, possibly signed for millions of pounds for a G13 club, given a first team jersey, having dominated the pre-season's friendlies, the club having refused numerous loan-propositions from rival first division teams, is not. I have only tried to start a policy discussion on the principles of the criteria and I can live with an article on Fran Mérida not being written until August or September when he has played competetively for the first team. I tried to start this duscussion on WP:BIO but my attempt was only archived without answers and forgotten, and with four participants of this discussion, with 300 members of WikiProject Football, you might wonder if you should bother starting a policy discussion in the first place. Maybe there are more fruitful things on Project Football to waste your energy on. I think I noticed that the Robert Grant article needed expanding for example ;). Sebisthlm 12:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
There appears to be a massive split on what appears on the page and what people believe should be the standard. Alexsanderson83 (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Managers

I think any manager who has ever managed a professional club or any country is notable enough for an article. Any thoughts on this? Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 01:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that's a decent rule of thumb, though I'm not sure that someone who was caretaker manager of a Third Division South team for two matches in the 50s and didn't do anything else would really count as notable. But as most managers were players as well, then notability can often be found in their playing career instead (and vice versa, for obscure players who became reputable managers). Qwghlm 09:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referees

I think very few referees are notable, probably the only high profile one is Pierluigi Collina. I could name most of the Premiership refs, but I'd struggle to write a decent article about any of them. Most referee notability comes from specific incidents rather than their full career, for example Anders Frisk retiring due to the furore over the Barcelona-Chelsea game. I think that in most cases, referees should only be included if they have officiated in a major final, or been the subject of controversy in an incident notable enough to have its own article. Oldelpaso 21:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that most refs aren't notable, although I would say something like "has officiated several World Cup/European Championship/whatever matches". Although, if going by the criterion that the cricket project seems to use, almost any referee that has officiated in any large national team competition, is notable. See for example my AfD on an umpire that officiated one (1) game in 1885... -- Elisson • Talk 21:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Heh, I voted in that AfD (merge). While cricket umpires have a higher profile within their sport than football referees, that one was taking inclusionism to ludicrous levels. How about:
Has officiated in any of the following:
  • Several international matches
  • Several continental level matches (UEFA Champions League/Copa Libertadores etc.)
  • A major domestic cup final
Oldelpaso 22:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Seems ok, although the last point is somewhat broad (define "major"?). Something that should almost automatically give notability to a referee, outside the other criteria mentioned, is if the ref is amongst the top five (ten?, two?) on the IFFHS vote on the world's best ref, which has been held every year since 1987. Or if he has appeared on the top ten list more than once (twice?), or something like that. -- Elisson • Talk 22:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The definition of "major" is possibly dependent on the outcome of criteria for "single matches" below. I've not heard of that vote before, interesting. Presumably most of those referees would fulfill more than one of the other criteria. Oldelpaso 22:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that's a little too stringent. On that basis Uriah Rennie would have to be deleted, but surely enough people have heard of him (and cursed his name) to warrant an article (the current one could do with expansion, however). I'd suggest that refereeing for one or more seasons at the highest level of a top seeded nation should also be included in the list. --Daduzi talk 22:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm willing to be convinced, but can't help but feel that in many cases an article about a referee would be a stub which is unexpandable due to lack of verifiable, reliable sources, other than trivia of dubious encyclopedic value such as average yellow cards per match. Looking at some Premier League programmes I have lying around I see a few names I'd put in that category, e.g. Andre Marriner (who?). So I suppose I'd suggest a longer period than one or two seasons. I'd be happy if somebody ended up proving me wrong by making a referee stub into (say) a good or featured article. Oldelpaso 23:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I think basic biographical information (place of birth, family, route into refereeing, career progression) should be possible to dig up. Then as to career details, notable matches refereed and controversial decisions would be the obvious candidates. Basically your average premiership referee should be seen in much the same way as your average premiership footballer, and have the same sort of information included in their articles. Few of them will be GA or FA candidates (though Graham Poll's up for GA), but equally few bog standard premiership player articles will be. That doesn't mean there's not information that could be included, and would be useful to readers, however. Most Premiership refs have had acres of column inches dedicated to them in the national press, there's got to be some verifiable and useful stuff out there. Thinking about it it might be worth hitting the guys at The Referee Forum up and trying to recruit them into working on the articles. --Daduzi talk 00:57, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single matches

I'd include all major cup finals (major UEFA, FIFA etc tournaments, national cups) and more notable world cup matches (although you could make a good case for any world cup match being ok). I don't think qualifying round matches or league matches should normally have articles unless they were especially notable (a country reaching the World Cup finals for the first time, perhaps, or a league match where some sort of record was set). Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 01:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I would add the knock-out matches for WC qual too (i.e. matches after which a team qualifies for WC). Julien Tuerlinckx 09:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think WC qualifying playoffs are particularly notable, they should probably just be included in brief in the main article for the relevant WC qualifying tournament. Qwghlm 09:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
OK. Maybe we can just ask that a match should have been attended by a minimum people (50,000?) and that this match has a special meaning (e.g. every home milan game has more than 50,000 so it should be a special game for milan as a milan-inter that ended in a 3-3 or whose winner also won the italian championship or something). Maybe the "minimum people" should be a percentage of the stadium capacity (90%?). Julien Tuerlinckx 07:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Nah, having a minimum attendance feels wrong. Very special matches can be played in front of relatively few people, as the notability in the match very, very seldom has to do with the actual attendance, but with what happens in the match and what relevance it has to others. -- Elisson • Talk 16:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
The majority of matches should fall under the scope of [[Season in country football]]. Oldelpaso 11:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, every match should be examinated case by case. You know, there cannot be any static way to say "hey, this match surely deserves an article". The Game of the Century for example is quite reasonable, but it was just a semi-final match of a World Cup. And, what about Argentina-England 2-1 at the 1986 World Cup? It was just a quarter-final! That's all, folks --Angelo 17:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single-season reports

A large number of articles West Ham United F.C. XXXX-XXXX e.g. West Ham United F.C. 1972-1973 have recently been created. Should these be kept/deleted/merged? Oldelpaso 21:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

They don't really fall under any of the direct categories in WP:NOT, and it would be difficult to merge them either with West Ham United F.C. or "xxxx-xxxx in English football" articles. As they stand, I'm not too inclined to delete - the articles are factual and NPOV, West Ham United are a notable club, and these articles don't needlessly clutter any high-level categories. Also, there are other club-by-season articles out there - e.g. Rangers_F.C._season_2002-03. But there are lots of the West Ham ones - a possible option may be to merge the articles into decades or periods of five years. Qwghlm 00:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Merging into decade-wise, or five year-period, articles is a good idea and should be applied to all of these season-wise club articles, IMO. -- Elisson • Talk 00:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
And possibly, let's include this kind of articles just for very notable teams. I don't think it would be a nice idea to have an article about, for example, A.S. Pizzighettone 2005-2006 (with all the respect possible for A.S. Pizzighettone, a minor Italian Serie C1 team). I hope you understand ;) --Angelo 17:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venues

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Regarding notability of Football (soccer) players

This is an invitation for interested parties to contribute to the above discussion in order to clarify certain issues about football player notability. I think clearer guidelines are needed to avoid repeated inappropriate nominations for deletion and time consuming discussions. Cheers! StephP 18:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comments, should this be our notability guideline?

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.

My suggestion is a collection of statements that we know are true from our experiences of AFDs and other areas, as below. Please note I have kept this suggestion purposely vague in some areas to avoid conflicts over small overly-exact points. The guidelines at WP:N and WP:BIO are still the official rules to follow, this is my interpretation of them for football related subjects. Please read through the following suggestion and comment on whether you feel this accurately reflects the views of WikiProject:Football members. - Foxhill 21:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

Notability is an article inclusion criterion based on encyclopaedic suitability. The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice".

Only articles that are deemed to cover a notable subject should be created, those that don't are liable for deletion. It is important that all articles show why a subject is notable to avoid this.

This page lists statements on notability relating to football articles that we agree are true. Please note that the validity of these can change at any time due to the organic nature of Wikipedia.

[edit] General notability guideline

Wikipedia:Notability states that -

"A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."

  • Each article must show the notability of its subject, failure to do so can result in the article being deleted. The sources used to show notability must not have been provided by the subject themselves and must be from a reliable source (for instance, a news organisation).
  • It must also be noted that Notability refers to the lasting impact of a subject, the article must demonstrate that this person/object/organisation is of long-term historical note.

[edit] Notability of people

Wikipedia:Notability (people) states that -

The following are generally held to be notable -

  1. Competitors who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming or tennis
  2. Competitors who have played or competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them).
  • It is generally accepted that Players, Managers and Referees who have represented their country in any officially sanctioned international competition (including the Olympics) are notable as they have achieved the status of participating at the highest level of football. The notability of these is accepted as they would have received significant coverage as outlined above in the general notability criteria.
  • It is generally accepted that Players, Managers and Referees who have participated in their country's highest domestic league (whether professional or not) are notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria.
  • It is generally accepted that Players, Managers and Referees who have participated in their country's fully professional domestic leagues are notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria. A fully professional league is defined as being constituted completely of teams composed of players that are paid to play for the team and have no other wage-paying job (i.e. not part-time and not amateur).
  • It is generally accepted that Players, Managers and Referees who have not participated in a fully professional domestic league are not notable, however notability can still be shown as per the general notability criteria. The article might not be deleted if adequate proof of notability has been provided.
  • A player who signs for a domestic team but has not played in any games is not deemed to have participated in a competition.
  • It is generally accepted that Youth Players are not notable unless they satisfy one of the statements above.
  • Players are not notable because they have played for a notable domestic team, notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria.

[edit] Notability of teams

  • It is generally accepted that the senior national team of each country is notable, this applies to both male and female competitions. The notability of these is accepted as they would have received significant coverage as outlined above in the general notability criteria.
  • It is generally accepted that the lower national teams of each country (Under-21, Under-19 etc) are notable if they have competed in an officially sanctioned international tournament, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria.
  • It is generally accepted that a team that has played in a fully professional domestic league is notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria.
  • It is generally accepted that a team that has played in a top-class cup competition or tournament is notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria. Top-class is defined as being a major cup competition either in the teams constituent country in which teams from other leagues may enter (if applicable) or an international club competition.
  • It is generally accepted that a team that is of interest to a locality only is not notable (for instance school teams competing in a local league), however notability can still be shown as per the general notability criteria. The article might not be deleted if adequate proof of notability has been provided.

[edit] Notability of games

  • It is generally accepted that the final game of a cup or tournament is notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria.
  • It is generally accepted that all other games are not notable, however notability can still be shown as per the general notability criteria. The article might not be deleted if adequate proof of notability has been provided.

[edit] Notability of leagues

  • It is generally accepted that all senior leagues sanctioned by an international body or a domestic football association are notable. A senior league is defined as containing teams whose players are over 16.

[edit] Comments

Does the above accurately reflect your views? If a consensus can agree then I will move it over to the article. - Foxhill 21:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

As said on other occasions, I strongly disagree with the following: "It is generally accepted that Players, Managers and Referees who have participated in their country's highest domestic league (whether professional or not) are notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria." Playing in the highest league of a country is not automatically notable, because playing in the highest league of a low-ranked country like the Central African Republic, Bhutan or Belize is not at all notable. Punkmorten 10:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
This is why I added in the caveat notability must still be shown as per the general criteria, which would preclude the addition of any non-notable player. If you can think of a better statement which can be used in all cases, we can integrate it. Or if you recommend the deletion of this statement, we can do that too.
The problem (as I see it) is that no players are automatically notable (due to the main criteria being over-arching) and yet players are saved from AFDs purely on their participation in a major league (for instance Premiership players) and it's only after the article has been saved that notability is added.
Please also let me reiterate that the above suggestion is not designed to usurp or change or add to the guidelines at WP:N or WP:BIO, they are still the be all and end all notability criteria - Foxhill 10:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time to include level 11 clubs into this project!

I feel that it is now time to include level 11 (or step 7) clubs of the English football league system to this project. This means that ALL the level 11 clubs should be considered inherently notable. It is because these clubs are part of the National league system and are also eligible to compete in the FA Vase, which is a national competition. By including these clubs into this project, Wikipedia would have a very comprehensive list of English football clubs. It would also make this project more in-depth in nature as well. Any comments on this would be deeply appreciated. --Siva1979Talk to me 02:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I also think this and agree with you totally, it is defiently time that level 11 clubs should be included.I wish there was some way of a vote to take place to see if they can be included. Thanks.  Sunderland06  22:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I oppose it. Level 11 is definitely amateur, and I don't think they deserve an encyclopedia article, considering they can hardly fit the general notability guideline (notably, due to lack of "significant coverage" and "reliable sources which are independent of the subject"). --Angelo (talk) 22:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes but how can you say that level 10 is notable when the quality of football is practically the same.  Sunderland06  22:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
IIRC it is related to eligibility for entering the FA Cup. Oldelpaso (talk) 23:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of Wearside Football League

Hi, can you tell me if teams in the Wearside Football League would be considered notable as i am considering making an article about my home town team Easington Colliery A.F.C..Thanks.Sunderland06(talk) 14:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Not inherently - the long established rule of thumb is that level 10 of the English football league system is the usual cutoff for clubs. It depends on whether the team has previously played at a higher level, has had cup success etc. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Under 19 and Under 20

I think it is time to include football players from under 19 and under 20 national teams, these players articles have been getting deleted without thought just because they havent played a professional football league, this could be because they are in the youth team at a professional club such as Jamie Chandler who has played for england under 19 and scored for them.  Sunderland06  15:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Most of them have been mentioned in reliable, third party sources such as newspapers and magazines. Also, they comepete at the highest level of amateur sports.--Phoenix-wiki 16:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Football is not an amateur sport, so what you say is simply not valid. In addition, newspaper mentions are expected to be more than a simple citation in a team lineup. In any case, I still support the current status quo (only players with at least one professional appearance, which is quite a very inclusive criterion by the way). --Angelo (talk) 17:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
The football you see on TV isn't, but young players of about 19 and 20 who don't play for teams like Liverpool and Arsenal aren't paid. They just play for fun.--Phoenix-wiki 18:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
But football is a professional sport in England, as well as in Italy and a huge majority of European and world countries. The notability rule you mentioned was thought to cover amateur sports which however have some kind of coverage (for instance, for being featured at the Olympic Games). Examples? Ping-pong, Greco-Roman wrestling, fencing... --Angelo (talk) 00:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, football is a professional sport, but these aren't proffesionals, they're amateur players.--Phoenix-wiki 13:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
You're mistaking the real meaning of that sentence. We're talking about amateur athletes in a mostly professional sport. And WP:BIO says "Competitors who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports", which is different than your interpretation of "Competitors who have competed at the highest amateur level in sports". I hope I've clarified it. --Angelo (talk) 14:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but how does under 19 and 20 football differ so much from under 21 national footballers. Sunderland06  15:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
It's not a different sport. That's all. --Angelo (talk) 15:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I understand what you mean now, but I don't agree with what you mean.--Phoenix-wiki 20:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I feel that some of the players are notable enough to warrent their own article. As long is they can be decent sized with good sources. KingsOfHearts (talk) 17:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I think that if the player has achieved something of note, i.e. youngest player to score in the F.A. Cup. Or similar. I also think they are of note if they play for a "big club" e.g. Ryan Flynn of Liverpool. // F9T 17:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the status quo is just about right - wait until they make a fully professional senior appearance (or I guess a full international game). - fchd (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
So if a player plays for the england under 19 national team they should be notable? Sunderland06  17:22, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
No, not until they make a fully professional senior appearance or a full international game. As I said, effectively the status quo as per WP:BIO. (I think that even is a little generous, e.g. the notability of someone making one or two League Two appearances seems pretty low in the scheme of things to me). In general, I would be in favour of tightening the notability criteria rather than loosening them. - fchd (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there any chance in under 19 players being included notable.  Sunderland06  22:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:BIO is definitely clear: if a footballer plays a professional league match, he is notable, otherwise he is not. I am not gonna support yet another loosening in the notability criterions, and so I fully agree with Richard Rundle. Under-19 player hardly gain some kind of significant coverage, except for a very few cases. --Angelo (talk) 00:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • If there is any justification for allowing articles on youth players it should be strictly limited to the highest level of youth football (U-21 in Europe and U-20 in the Americas). The U-20 world cup is the most important youth tournament in world football. King of the NorthEast 11:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of footballers

Hi, following the lengthy discussion about football notability criteria in November I have restarted the discussion here. Please give your opinion so that we can move towards formalising the criteria. Regards, King of the NorthEast 15:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability

I checked this out when looking into the above section about danish players. I was disapointed to find that there was no criterea at all, so I made an attempt. As usual I ran out of steam and ended up with half an article. I've left the draft here so feel free to expand/hack/translate the the page so that we can put something decent on the page. josh (talk) 02:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I find it ridiculous that you want former players to have played 100 games. One game and you're in, regardless of if it was in 1984 or 2008. matt91486 (talk) 04:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Scanning over this, I believe that statement is referring to the inclusion of players in club articles under "Notable former players". If this is so, then the 100 game criteria is the most oft used one for both this section and in "List of X F.C. players". As Josh said, it's a half-article/draft so feel free to amend it. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 04:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
My thinking was that any player that is currently playing professional football can be considered notetable with AFD considered after his career. However, a player who managed one appearence for X F.C. in the third divison 50 years ago should be excluded. The actual number is up for debate. The important thing to remember is that none of the ideas are absolute. There will always be debate over notability but player/clubs/staff meeting the criterea can be generally considered notable. josh (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
To put it a bit more clearer I don't think that the guidelines should ever be used to say X is not notable because he doesn't meet Y. The arguement should be X is not considered notable because of Y now prove why (s)he/it is. josh (talk) 04:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think putting people up for AfD once they retire is a clear violation of notability is not temporary; once they've played a professional game, they are thereafter notable. This is pretty standard across other sports WikiProjects as far as I can tell. I know sourcing for footballers articles can be troublesome, especially compared with baseball ones, where you have easy, complete databases so articles about players from the 1920s can be created and verified in about five minutes of work, but if the general consensus is that playing a professional game makes them notable, then it shouldn't matter at all when that happened. Notability is not temporary. matt91486 (talk) 06:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
If you feel that strongly about it then change it. Its only a first draft. josh (talk) 16:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
As it stands, notability remains, historically, in football articles, and player notability is gained when the criteria is met through playing just one game to that exact criteria. Why is a change being discussed here, when it should be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability? And inclusion into sections called "Notable former players" is not judged by numbers of games - it is judged (as the title suggests) by notability, measured by how much the player is mentioned in reliable sources connected with or referenced to the club he is being judged as notable for, and through sourceable major achievements with that club. Not a bunch of figures or statistics. Could this thread be transferred to the correct discussion page at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Notability? Ref (chew)(do) 16:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Notability is not temporary. The criteria should be the same for current or former players. Peanut4 (talk) 16:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I think this is an equally valid location for the discussion at hand. This is sufficiently important and wide-ranging to talk about it here at the main project talk page (which a lot of people may have on watch lists) rather than on a subpage. - fchd (talk) 17:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah; the discussion will probably be easier to have here where everyone can see it and then it could be moved to the notability sub page afterward. I'll go modify the draft now, if it hasn't been done already. matt91486 (talk) 17:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I Agree that the discussion should be held here where people will see it on their watchlist, but Novembers discussion about the subject took place on this page and just fizzled out without any apparent consensus. King of the NorthEast 00:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
As per my comment above I am going to attempt to revive discussion on creating a set of formal criteria (probably futile, but I'm still going to try). I have added 1 more suggestion about youth football as the subject needs discussion. Perhaps we can state whether we support each suggested criteria on an individual basis, so as to formalise the ones that everyone supports ASAP and further discuss the more controversial proposals.

[edit] Suggested Criteria

1) Has played for a fully professional club at a national level (FPNL club) of the league structure.

2) has played for a "FPNL club" in the FA Cup or League Cup (or non-English equivalent) or a Continental (or Intercontinental) club competition.

3) Has played senior international football or football at the Olympic games.

4) Has played at the highest level of continental youth football (U-21 international Europe, U-20 elsewhere, or at the U-20 World Cup)

5) Has been included in a squad (squad number) at the highest level of continental club football (Champions League, Copa Libertadores) or the World Club Championships.

6) Has been included in a squad (squad number) for a senior international team in a World Cup/Continental Cup qualifier or the final stages of such tourmaments.

[edit] Reasoning

1) Playing for a professional club at the national level allows articles on players for important teams such as Anderlecht who play in a league containing Semi-Pro teams, and helps to avoid the difficult task of establishing whether every team in the Peruvian, Guatemalan, Albanian, Taiwanese.... top flight is professional. It also removes the dependence on the status of other teams in the league when considering whether at player is notable and reduces the (admittedly unlikely) scenario of a semi-pro team gaining promotion to league 2 in England, necessitating the deletion of every player never to have played higher than that level.

2) To allow articles on players who make their debut for a notable enough club, in a competitive game other than the league itself.

3) Already accepted criteria

4) As per several cases like Daniel Parslow who survived AfD on the basis of having played for Wales U-21.

5) As per several cases where the closing admin kept non-playing players despite going against the prior notability standard of actually having played. These articles would provide info on top level squad players who have yet to make their competitive debut and avoid redlinks in Champions League navboxes.

6) To allow articles for international players in important international tournaments who have yet to play for their country and may play for a semi-pro team or at a regional level of club football.

[edit] Discussion

  • 1)Agree, 2)Agree, 3)Agree, 4)Unsure, would we only allow players who have played at the U-20 World Cup, and continental tournaments, or allow any player to have represented their country at the highest agegroup of youth football 5)Oppose- I strongly believe that footballers must have played at least 1 game before they become notable. 6)Unsure King of the NorthEast 15:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • 1,2,3) Agree 4,5,6) I don't think these can be set in stone, I think that many of these players are notable, and many aren't. Remember a footballer can be notable before playing a pro game (see Freddy Adu) I think in these cases it needs to be seen if their notability can be established by other means, if it can keep them, if it can't delete them. John Hayestalk 12:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • 1, 2, 3) Agree; 4) Oppose I don't think Faroese/Andorran U-21 internationals are notable; 5, 6) Oppose I'll stick with actually playing a game before notability is conferred.
I would also like to add a (1a) qualifier: Has played in the top division of a country that has played at the World Cup. This would allow players who have played in the top division in Ireland and Northern Ireland to have articles, which under the current criteria, they are currently denied (technically, but not in reality) as the leagues are not fully professional. This also gets around the fact that it is very difficult to tell which clubs are professional or not (as we have seen past Conference debates). пﮟოьεԻ 57 12:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
    • As far as I see it, under the suggested criteria players at any professional clubs in the Irish leagues would be allowed without the caveat, being professional clubs that play at the national level. King of the NorthEast 13:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Point 4 needs clarification, does it include qualification or not? For example, I'd say every player in the 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship is notable, but not every player in the qualifiers. Points 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 are fine. - MTC (talk) 13:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Personally I would say tournament only, if at all, but the issue needs resolving since articles like Daniel Parslow are currently being used as precedents. King of the NorthEast 13:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Daniel Parslow was nothing but mistakenly kept. Just nominate the article alone and it'll be deleted.  Jhony   15:45, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

*1–6 Agree. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 13:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

  • 1) Agree; 2) Weak agree (I'd rather to make clear the competitive game must feature two fully professional clubs). 4) Oppose per Number 57; 5 and 6) Strong oppose (notability is not inherited by a simple squad number, there must be at least a competitive game with that team). --Angelo (talk) 13:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • My thoughts:
    • 1) Now Agree Oppose:
      • It's much harder to tell whether or not particular club is professional in comparison with whether or not there are only professional clubs in the league.
      • I don't think that Irish/Northern Irish/English Conference/etc players are generally notable
      • If you really want to allow articles on players for teams such as Anderlecht, try "Has played for a club which played at the highest level of continental club football (Champions League)" or something similar
    • 2) Now Agree Oppose as per 1), would Agree with "has played for a team that competed in a fully professional league in the FA Cup or League Cup (or non-English equivalent) or a Continental (or Intercontinental) club competition"
    • 3) Agree
    • 4) Oppose, would Agree with "Has played in the final stage of the highest level of continental youth football (U-21 international Europe, U-20 elsewhere, or at the U-20 World Cup)", and I also think that players of continental U-17 winning teams are notable
    • 5) Agree, I think that say Liverpool or Arsenal youngsters became notable before their professional debut. However, I would also Agree with "Has been included in a squad (squad number) during the play-off stage of the highest level of continental club football (Champions League, Copa Libertadores)" or something similar as a compromise
    • 6) Agree, same as 5), would also Agree with "Has been included in a squad (squad number) for a senior international team in the final stages of World Cup/Continental Cup" or something similar as a compromise  Jhony   15:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
"# If you really want to allow articles on players for teams such as Anderlecht, try "Has played for a club which played at the highest level of continental club football (Champions League)" or something similar" - Why on earth wouldn't Anderlecht players warrant an article? matt91486 (talk) 16:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Funny, I've never said that they wouldn't. I just said that for me 1) is not a good criteria for "legalizing" players from major teams who play in a not fully professional league, so I proposed another criteria that I think will fulfil this "legalizing".  Jhony   17:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. The you phrased it made it sound like you were included in the you, so I just assumed. My bad. matt91486 (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
"Has played for a club which played at the highest level of continental club football (Champions League)" There are a few problems with this proposal, 1 being that it would allow player articles on fallen giants now residing in regional leagues such as 1. FC Magdeburg. It also creates the situation where a players notability may rely on the achievements of his team before he was even born, rather than the clubs current league status. Another is that it does not resolve the problem of trying to establish whether a team plays in a league with no semi-professional teams when a player comes up for AfD from a club with no Copa Libertadores, UEFA Champions League experience. King of the NorthEast 19:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It does not resolve that problem, right, but as I pointed out above, to determine whether or not particular club is professional is even more complicated problem in general. To solve the Magdeburg problem, wording should be changed to "Has played for a club which played at the highest level of continental club football (Champions League) in the same season" or "... in the same, previous or next season" or even "Has played for important teams such as Anderlecht who play in a league containing Semi-Pro teams" (with a "use common sense" note) :)  Jhony   19:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I see there are going to be disparities regarding fully professional leagues, etc. Would this not end up easier defining country by country which leagues will be counted to avoid any arguments? Or would that become a very unwieldy list? Peanut4 (talk) 19:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I would support country by country definition.  Jhony   20:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
In principle I could support country by country definition, its the system we should have evolved already under the current setup, but the problem is that in the case of a Templetonian premier league footballer up for AfD, it seems that the burden of AfD defenders is to prove that all 20 templetonian premier league teams are professional, rather than that the players team is professional and that the league is highly notable by playing at the national level. If we are serious about collecting and maintaining information on the professional status of all clubs in a vast number of leagues, then it can be done, but even with my passable Spanish I wouldn't know where to find all of the information on the professional status 10 CONMEBOL countries leagues (top flight and possibly 2nd division) and the 13? Spanish speaking members of CONCACAF, never mind the Taiwanese or Kuwaiti leagues. King of the NorthEast 23:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree on 1-3 & 6, disagree, verging to strongly disagree on 4-5. The current criteria are surely wide enough that several thousands of current players are notable, let alone all those from the past. I do not support the idea that youth internationals or players merely granted a club squad number gain sufficient notability. - fchd (talk) 17:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree with 1-4. Not yet convinced about 5 and 6. Notability is not temporary - are we suggesting that a player will always be notable if they pass 5 and 6, but end up never playing a professional game? Peanut4 (talk) 18:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
    • This 5&6 issue can be seen from both points of view, notability must not be seen as transitory as it conflicts with general wikipedia policy, but non-inclusion in some cases detracts from wikipedia as a source of information as people would be made to look elsewhere for information on potential champions league opponents in the case of youngsters in the squad or even on the bench. For non-players the options seem to be a) not at all, b) keeping them for ever even if they don't make it or c) the compromise option of allowing a temporary "stay of execution". I not sure of how option c could fit in with general wiki policy, but I do know that many non-players have received unofficial stays of execution for many months because they were not spotted, or perhaps spotted but not sent to AfD. King of the NorthEast 23:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree with 1-4, unsure about 5 & 6. However, re:point 4, Number57's argument that Andorran Under-21 players are not notable is very valid; perhaps we should limit the notability of Under-21 players to the top 50/75/100 nation's players. GiantSnowman (talk) 20:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
    • The other option is to limit them by appearance in the World Youth Cup or the most senior continental championship (not qualifiers). This would mean that the criteria relied less on the transitory top 50/100 rankings and that junior players from the weaker nations would be excluded.by non-appearance. King of the NorthEast 23:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Good points, both of you, very good points. I would change it to appearances in U-21 championship finals (or U-20 where appropriate) - again as my points above, it may be listing to be specific, e.g. Euro U-21 Championships, etc. Peanut4 (talk) 23:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Another good point. But what about players from 'big' nations which never qualify for regional competitions but have proven themselves at Under-21 level? GiantSnowman (talk) 23:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
          • OK making a list of the specific tournaments shouldn't be too hard, there arn't many: World U-20, Asia U-20, Africa U-20, S. America U-20, N&C America U-20, Euro U-21. The only problem being Oceania, their highest seems to be World Youth Qualifiers (correct me if I'm wrong). As for big nations never to qualify, I'm not sure what you (GS) mean by proving themselves at youth level, perhaps you could give us some examples and how they proved themselves outside of the major youth tournaments? King of the NorthEast 23:49, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
            • Teams who played in continental U-20 competitions include Netherlands Antilles, Bermuda and Bangladesh. Personally I don't think U-20 players from countries like these are notable, since they are likely to fail the general notability guide. --Angelo (talk) 09:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
              • Similarly, Israel qualified for last year's Euro U-21 tournament, and even though I went to Holland to follow them, I wouldn't say some of the team members are notable. Senior international caps only please! пﮟოьεԻ 57 10:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                • Perhaps we could say that only appearances in the World Youth Cup are the only youth appearances that count towards notability, being the very highest level of youth football. Either that or the total exclusion of youth footballers King of the NorthEast 14:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • So as a general idea, we're looking for some way to phrase that we'd like players who play in fully professional divisions as well as the first division of notable footballing countries to be notable? That's at least how I'm reading it, and it seems like a logical definition. Then we're not creating articles for all of the players in the Andorran league, but it does not exclude countries like Ireland. Of course, my way doesn't work for phrasing because notable footballing countries lacks a definitive parameter (countries who have appeared in their sponsored tournament, Euro, African Cup of Nations, etc? that would rule out the minnows). matt91486 (talk) 00:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • So far I know one NPOV way to determine notable European football league - UEFA club ranking. Similarly for notable football national team - FIFA ranking.  Jhony   01:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Where the league is not fully professional, I say stick to players from the top division of nations which have qualified for the world cup - rankings change dramatically over the years (Northern Ireland recently) and "qualified for the world cup" remains constant and is very easily defined. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
        • I agree using rankings is too POV, and rankings will always change. Another yardstick is required and Number57's is potentially the best one. Peanut4 (talk) 10:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
          • It looks like "qualified for the world cup" have been drawn up to allow Irish, Northern Irish and Welsh leagues. Because it makes no sense to draw a conclusion about current strength of the league on the basis of all-time achievements of the national team. I have nothing against Irish, Northern Irish and Welsh leagues, but in such case be honest and allow say Slovak, Bosnian and Makedonian leagues as these are stronger. For the record, Indonesian, Salvadoran, Honduran and Haitian leagues all will pass "qualified for the world cup" criteria.  Jhony   13:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
          • (edit conflict) I also agree that rankings are unsuitable due to their transitory nature, what happens with teams/leagues that drop out of the top 50/100? what happens when they re-enter? I'm also not convinced by the world cup qualification criteria, I can't see what this has to do with club football. How can the notability of a club player rely on the achievements of national team players rather than the quality of their own club or the league they play in. Take Wales for example, they played in the 1958 World Cup, how can the achievements of John Charles, Ivor Allchurch & co have more relevance to the notability of a current TNS player than the club's professional status, position in the national league structure and appearances in Champions League Qualifiers? The same goes for Indonesia and Cuba (World Cup 1938). Another problem is that in the case of Senegal in the World Cup in 2002, 21 of the 22 man squad played outside the Senegalese league structure, telling us more about the quality of Ligue 2 in France than the Senegal Premier League. I still think were better off with something simple and unambiguous like the proposed criteria 1) "professional team at national level of the league structure" or sticking with the current definition of fully professional league, but actually creating and maintaining a database of the hundreds(?) of leagues that qualify as fully professional.King of the NorthEast 14:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
            • I'd endorse "professional team at national level of the league structure" as long as in the case of disputes it can be backed up by something more concrete than "I know that Footown F.C. are professional because I read it somewhere......" ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
              • So, in case we know it for sure, the team won't be considered professional, right?  Jhony   14:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                • Yes, maybe a reference from a reliable source showing the teams professional status on the team article could be the requirement. King of the NorthEast 14:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                  • That's what I was about to say (before I was edit conflicted!). As an aside, I was not defining the criteria to deliberately include Irish/N Irish league players in the notable section (I don't believe Northern Irish or Welsh league players are notable), but merely suggesting it as an alternative to the whole professional club thing. As I said before, if we have a well-defined way of saying which clubs are professional or not, that would be my preferred approach. пﮟოьεԻ 57 14:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                    • Right, in such case I endorse it too. It would be good to collect such references in one place.  Jhony   14:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                      • I still find limiting it solely to professional clubs in all circumstances is perhaps too restrictive and that there needs be some provision for national top divisions. matt91486 (talk) 16:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • In response to King of the NorthEast (23:49, 4 February 2008) - by saying "players from 'big' nations which never qualify for regional competitions but have proven themselves at Under-21 level", I meant players who are a constant prescence in the Under-21 side, with multiple caps, but who have never appeared in a major youth tournament. In response to Number57 (10:11, 5 February 2008) - what about an Argentine youth player who has 20 Under-20 caps and 20 Under-20 goals but never plays in a fully-professional league and who never makes the transition to senior international football? GiantSnowman (talk) 12:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • TBH, it is highly likely that a prolific U-20 player would also have played in a professional league at club level. However, if they hadn't then no, I wouldn't give them an article. It might be harsh, but we have to make the cut off point very clear, or we will get all kinds of wikilawyering about whether someone deserves an article. Aside from this, I take it that we are assuming non-playing players from the MLS draft as not notable (as they are not specifically mentioned in the criteria)? пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Fair enough my example was a very extreme one, but it's interesting to hear you say that you wouldn't give such a player an article. And as for MLS, I think that non-players are not notable, as in any other professional league, unless like Adu or someone they've had significant press coverage. GiantSnowman (talk) 13:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Therein lies the problem. There are one or two players who really are notable before ever playing like Adu or Sonny Pike. However, various editors will see the existence of their articles and claim that their particular player is a similar situation... пﮟოьεԻ 57 14:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
          • Is there a problem? WP:BIO has a basic criteria: significant coverage in reliable secondary sources should be shown, otherwise an article will be deleted. Irrespective of claims.  Jhony   14:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
            • Yes, there is a problem. For instance, if a non-professional non-league team reaches the third round, and then a player scores against, say, Liverpool, he would command significant coverage in reliable sources. However, he would fail WP:BIO as he hasn't played in a fully pro league. I would still say delete such an article, but editors could claim otherwise based on coverage. пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
              • Please take a closer look at WP:BIO. This player would not fail WP:BIO. Any person who has received significant coverage in reliable sources is notable (basic criteria). Besides if the person is a footballer, he is notable if he has competed in a fully professional league (additional criteria).  Jhony   15:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                • Yeah, that's what the debate on the MLS draftees notability was about. They met WP:BIO but failed the WikiProject's standards. matt91486 (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
                  • This is what's so tedious in the debate on notability when defending the professional league football requirement (and is the reason why I brought up the issue below). The arguments made always boils down to the following circular argument: 1) There is no reason to ammend the criteria to include youth players who haven't actually played a league game yet since they aren't notable. 2) The reason why they aren't notable is because they haven't debuted yet i.e. don't fulfill the current criteria. By this way of reasoning there will never be a reason to change the current criteria since expanding it will only add players wich per definition don't meet the current criteria thus being not notable and with no reason to be included. Sebisthlm (talk) 16:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Eaxctly my point. This projects rules should enhance not overrule WP:BIO. If a player is notable by WP:BIO then these rules aren't needed anyway. John Hayestalk 16:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Professionality?

I'm sorry, but I have to question the requirement that the league has to be professional. Why is notability dependent on the form of contract of it's players and not it's actual notability in the general sense of the word? The PL is notable because of it's press coverage, being the 1st tier league in an important footballing country and so on, not because the players have a lot of spare time when the´re not playing football... I assume this requirement came to place to separate the professional English league system from the amateur leagues, but it's not very well suited for the rest of the footballing world. For some examples; Is really 4th tier English football (League 2) more notable than Spanish third division (Segunda B) just because L2 is fully professional?, was Swedish Allsvenskan not notable in 2007 because IF Brommapojkarna wasn't a fully professional club? Was the Brazilian league not notable before the full introduction of professionalism in the 30'ies (a majority of the Brazilian squad for the '34 WC came from Botafogo, still an amateur club at the time)?

The professionality requirement is a seemingly objective way of asserting notability, without having to determine the actual "subjective" general notability of the league, but I don't think it's easier to determine if a league is fully professional than if it's (generally) notable, and as I've shown above it can lead to odd conclusions. I'm sorry to say, but we can't get around the fact that we have to find another way of determining notability of a league. I think that user:ArtVandelay13 has a good idea in separate "notability thresholds" (the nice table in the middle of the last discussion.

I also think we have to differentiate the number of league appearences required for different leagues. Why is one league 2 game notable, but not 300 conference games? Sure, both of my suggestions would take some (if not a lot) of work to agree upon, but I think it's unavoidable if we don't want to have this discussion every other month all over again. Sebisthlm (talk) 17:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that the criteria we have decided upon ("Has played for a fully professional club at a national level of the league structure") does not depend on the league being professional at all. It is completely dependent on the clubs' status. Plus the Brazilian players you talk about would be notable under point 3 of the criteria. пﮟოьεԻ 57 17:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
That's true, and the current suggestion is a step forward, but I don't think you're addressing my point on the Botafogo players. Botafogo was a major club in Brazil, even in the '30ies, so I would suggest that also their players who didn't made it into the WC squad were notable, regardless of if their club was professional or not. Sebisthlm (talk) 17:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a good point, in Argentina professionalisation of the game occurred in 1931, I believe that a Racing Club player who was part of the 1913-1919 championship winning teams, but never played for Argentina warrants an article. I'm fairly sure that he could be considered to have played club football at the highest level therefore meeting WP:BIO "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports". Since there was no professional club football to supercede itKing of the NorthEast 19:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Concluding arguments concerning the requirement of professional league football

To conclude my position; I think the requirement of professional league football is crude, and might lead to some problems since professionality doesn't exactly correlate perfectly with notability. The thing is, no matter wich notability criteria we decide upon it's always going to be subjective, arbitrary and crude, since we will always have to draw the line somewhere. This will inevitably lead to problems around the boundary between notable - not notable. If we keep the professionality requirement, there will always be editors who (rightly so) don't understand why incredibly-promising-and-much-hyped youth player X or 500-games-conference-veteran Y are not notable, when one-League-2-game has-been player Z is. One could ask oneself why certain youth internationals always pops up before they have debuted. It might even be because they're actually notable in the general sense of the word.

I often see editors almost bragging about how tough they are on youth internationals and how they want to get rid of non-players, sounding like they were republican presidential candidates discussing the war on terror. I, for one, don't think there is a real concern that WP will be over-flowed with articles on Maltese or American Samoan U-20 players, and even if was, it would only be a nice balance to all the articles on talentless single-digit league 2-game players that no one will ever have heard of in five years. Sticking with the professional league football requirement will always favor English league system players over players with other nationalities since England is the country with most professional clubs (down to 5th or even lower tiers), while a league system like the Spanish, of arguably the same standard as the English, in reality only have two professional tiers. So, the way I see it, the professional League game requirement is not being tough on non-notable footballers, it's picking English League 2 players (or even lower) over actually notable "non-players".

The concerns I've raised should have pointed out that it is a clear danger that a requirement of professional football could contradict the general WP:N guidelines. Having said that, I acknowledge that coming up with an alternative that everyone could agree on would be difficult, and since we're coming so close on agreeing on a requisite, wich in my mind is a vast improvement over the old, I'm not going to stand in the way over the issue of professionality. I still maintain, however, that league appearences should not always be mandatory for notability, and would also like to point out that WP:N superceedes our general criteria anyway. Sebisthlm (talk) 23:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Agree 2 and 3; Oppose 1 (as written), 4, 5 and 6. As written 1 would allow Conference national players in which is too low a level. Opposing 4, 5 and 6 because someone should have played for a club at sufficiently high level or for an international team. The argument against squad members is that if they get a career wrecking injury before they have played we are left forever with an article on a nn person. TerriersFan (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment On criterion 1, how exactly do we know which clubs are professional? Mattythewhite (talk) 16:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I would assume a reliable source to be either the club's official website or BBC Sports. пﮟოьεԻ 57 16:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • As an example this BBC article states that Grays Athletic are fully pro (or at least they were in 2006)....... ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
        • That's another query I have. We know that Grays were pro in 2006, but does that necessarily mean they are now? Or can they have just been stated as being pro at any time and it confers notabiliy to their players still? Mattythewhite (talk) 16:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
          • I dunno, it's a tricky one. We don't want to get into the situation where someone argues that because, for example, Altrincham are FPNL in 2008 that an article could then be created for someone who played for them in the Alliance Premier League in 1979..... ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
            • And is there some sort of collection of sources for FPNL clubs? This would be pretty important for a player to be back in an AfD, so it could be verified that their club is infact professional... Mattythewhite (talk) 16:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
              • I think this discussion somewhat proves my point above, the professionality requirement is supposed to be the easy verifiable and objective requirement. Let me add this question to the discussion; what's objective about deeming Grays notable and not a semi-pro club in, say, the Belgian top division? Sebisthlm (talk) 17:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Formalisation

Right, a quick count shows that all 9 editors to !vote so far, support 1-3 in this type of form.

1) Has played for a fully professional club at a national level of the league structure (FPNL club). (supported by evidence from a reliable source on a club by club basis for teams playing in leagues that are not recognised as being fully professional)

2a) has played for a "FPNL club" in the FA Cup or League Cup (or non-English equivalent) or a Continental (or Intercontinental) club competition.

or

2b) has played in a fixture between two "FPNL clubs" in the FA Cup or League Cup (or non-English equivalent) or a Continental (or Intercontinental) club competition.

3) Has played senior international football or football at the Olympic games.

Perhaps we could move towards officially formalising them, not sure how this is done, but consensus now definitely seems to be in favour.

Another suggestion is, that once formalised, AfD closures which ignore/bypass these criteria cannot be used as precedents and that any future changes to the criteria must be proposed and debated at WP:FOOTY.

We can then move on to discuss the more controversial proposals 4-6 and see if there is any possible consensus. King of the NorthEast 15:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Support No complaints with 1-3. пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment looking back over the discussion in November I have found 4 more supports for similar proposals to 1-3 from editors yet to !vote here. I just hope that we can get them "set in stone" this time around, King of the NorthEast 15:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment (2b) concerns me, since it's not so uncommon to see teams from San Marino or Andorra playing in a qualifying round for a continental competition (or even the Intertoto Cup), however I think they are non-notable as well and they would fail the general notability guide. --Angelo (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Those clubs surely aren't "FPNL" though, so that criterion couldn't be used to support players from such teams...... ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) I offered 2b as an option in response to your comment "I'd rather to make clear the competitive game must feature two fully professional clubs". I'm not sure what you mean with Andorran teams, do they even have any FPNL clubs that could qualify under this criteria. King of the NorthEast 15:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
      • By the way 2b is stricter than 2a.  Jhony   15:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I personally favour the stricter 2b) criteria. King of theNorthEast 15:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
        • So do I.  Jhony   16:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The following remain unclear for me:
    • 2), a) and b) - does it include Champions League and UEFA Cup qualifying games? Intertoto Cup?
      • also FA Cup Qualifying, I would say yes, if both the clubs are FPNL teams King of the NorthEast 16:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • 3) - does it mean "A international" matches recognized by FIFA?  Jhony   15:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Not sure, it seems pretty unlikely that a player would make their England A debut before their club debut, but if the match is FIFA recognised I cant see the harmKing of the NorthEast 16:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
        • I'm not sure you understood me. Take a look at Brazil_national_football_team#Results under coach Dunga. I asked - does 3) include all international matches (i.e. match against Al Kuwait Kaifan counts), or just A international matches recognized by FIFA (i.e. match against Al Kuwait Kaifan doesn't count)?  Jhony   16:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
          • I would say limit it to 'A' internationals only. пﮟოьεԻ 57 17:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
            • Perhaps the use of "3) Has played FIFA recognised international football or football at the Olympic games" would sefficiently address this concern? King of the NorthEast 17:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Perhaps when we are ready one of our respected admins could be bold and move the first three criteria and the no-precedents caveat onto this page Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability as an act of formal acceptance? King of the NorthEast 15:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment/additional suggestions. I think there are some cases where a player is notable, even if he hasn't played in a professional (notable) league (I also question the term professional league above). Adu and Sonny pike has been brought up earlier in this discussion, but I think there can be less famous youth players that are as notable (if not much more) than a player with a single League 2 game (I also point out the need to differentiate the required number of games for different leagues above). I posted a suggestion on youth players in the previous discussion, but a bit late so I never got any response, so i'll try again...

Non-players can still be notable if they are contracted to a notable team (in a major league?) and

  • has played for any of the "big" youth international teams or in a big youth international finals competition for a smaller country. or
  • has been transfered to the club for a "substantial" sum or leading to "substantial" independent publicity or
  • has been named in a continental club competition squad (e.g. CL) (and sat on the bench?) or
  • has recieved substantial independent publicity.

(I came up with these suggestions on the top of my head when posting on the last discussion so they probably need some tweaking...) Sebisthlm (talk) 17:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Disagree The criteria you've listed ("big" country - Sudan is a big country, "substantial publicity/sum" how much is substantial?) are completely dependent upon WP:OR. Sticking to actually playing a game is by far the simplest and most definite notability criterion we can have. пﮟოьεԻ 57 17:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, my suggestion lost some clarity when broken out of the context of the previous discussion. By 'big' country I was referring to a prior discussion on setting up a different standard for the 'big' leagues (if you missed the prior discussion you can find it here. I'm actually a bit surprised that you thought by 'big' country I meant big to the surface or population (like Greenland opr Sudan). If I didn't know better, I would think you're deliberatly trying to miss-interpret my point. I agree that sticking with one game for any professional team is easier to determine, but that that (because of the above said) also is the reason why the same discussion pops up all the time. Most people just don't think that notability is based on one appearence for any professional club regardless of the notability of the club, but rather the amount of press coverage, etc, of the player. Sebisthlm (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, sorry I was being deliberately facetious to illustrate my point that we can't define "big" countries. TBH, I think the only reason why this discussion pops up from time to time is that the notability criteria page was always blank. пﮟოьεԻ 57
No hard feelings, i assure you. I also understand your concern of WP:OR, but I think differentiating leagues by notability could be done in some objective way (using a ranking as a base for example). The point is that using professionalism as an "objective" translation of the "subjective" notability is perhaps easier, but it just don't mean the same thing - there might be leagues that are notable but not professional and vice versa. After all, the notability criteria is always going to be "subjective" or OR; it's not god-given that professional club football, of all possible requirements, is the only "objective" one. Sebisthlm (talk) 20:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
But as noted elsewhere, the rankings change constantly. The only definite is "qualified for a world cup". TBH I am quite happy to be harsh and not give articles unless they play for the first/full team. пﮟოьεԻ 57 20:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
What's harsh about keeping a player who made one appearence in League 2 ten years ago? Sebisthlm (talk) 21:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Caveats - I have no problem with #1 as long as we add further caveats to it. For example, if a semi-professional club gets to the first division of, say, the Belgian League or the Swiss League, I think that the players on that club during that season should gain notability regardless of their clubs' professional standing. Also, Copa Libertedores matches need to be included along with Intertoto, etc.; we can't have bias towards European leagues only. matt91486 (talk) 18:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • This might sound like a frivolous concern...but in my mind any of the leagues in FIFA 2008/whatever the current versions will be down the line are obvious concerns for this. Players actually in the game are going to be natural candidates to be looked up; so if a team from the Irish first division and Belgian first division happens to not be professional, but is given the notoriety of inclusion in a fairly widespread video game, it's going to be reaching a level of conflict between the two. Obviously, leagues this applies for shouldn't solely be based on something like FIFA, but it's a real concern. Being in the first division and receiving first division coverage in a case like this should confer notability on the players. matt91486 (talk) 18:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Historical aspects

I have been following this discussion with interest, but have not commented up to now partly because of my workload and partly out of inertia. I personally prefer to create articles about players from the early days of football, rather than the present era. To me, a player from 1908 is just as worthy as one from 2008. My problem with the criteria as proposed is the requirement for the player to have "played for a fully professional club at a national level". In the early days of football, clubs were not professional and most footballers were amateur. If you look at the article on the 1876 FA Cup Final, this was between two amateur clubs. Most of the players in that match for whom articles have been created also played for England and are therefore notable on those grounds. But what about John Hawley-Edwards or Thomas Hughes; although they both scored in the FA Cup Final they have not played for a "fully professional club" and do not therefore meet the required criteria. If I were to create articles about these players would they fail an AfD?

There is an article about Jarvis Kenrick - he also fails the proposed criteria, although scoring the first ever FA Cup goal and winning the Cup three times would probably prevent him being deleted on an AfD.

Moving forward half a century - Max Woosnam was an amateur player throughout his career, but he played for England in 1922 and captained Manchester City. This means that at that time City was not a "fully professional club", neither was the Football League fully professional. Does this mean that there should be no articles about club players from that era, unless they played at international level?

I have only looked at this from an English perspective; many leagues elsewhere in the world only became fully professional quite late on. Where does this leave them? I must go now to as I'm watching the England u-21s this evening. Cheers. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Very good points. Perhaps we could have different criteria for pre-League days (i.e. playing in the FA Cup final). The Woosnam comment may still be relevant today (I seem to recall reading that one of Dag & Red's players is still only semi-pro as he still works as a teacher). However, I would guess that the club would probably still be described as fully-professional in reliable sources despite the presence of one or two amateurs. пﮟოьεԻ 57 17:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Precisely my point (one of them anyway)! Even if the English league system was very early with professionalism, large and important parts of the world (like Brazil) were actually working fiercely against professionalism for as long as they could. As late as in the '50ies Swedish players turned pro was banned from the National team for example. To me the obsession with professional football is the result of a exclusively English view-point. Sebisthlm (talk) 19:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
How about changing it to include the caveat "played for a club that was in a top division which is today fully-professional" or something similar? пﮟოьεԻ 57 19:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I think I have answered this point above but I'll repeat myself here; I'm fairly sure that a , since there were no professional club football tournaments to supercede them, King of the NorthEast 19:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Excellent point, but wouldn't that allow articles on footballers currently playing in top divisions which are not fully pro? пﮟოьεԻ 5<;font color="blue">7 19:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I would be inclined to say no because the vast majority of successful footballers now play the professional game, travelling abroad to do it if their national league is mainly amateur or semi-pro. The highest level of Andorran/American Samoan football isn't the pinacle of the club game with global transfers a regular feature of the modern world game. In the 1920-1940s many South American amateur footballers joined professional clubs in Italy & Spain, but relatively few compared to the vast majority of South American footballers who competed at the top level of Brazilian & Argentine football as amateurs. I hope you see what I'm getting atKing of the NorthEast 19:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
If notability is not temporary, shouldn't most of the same leagues that are notable now be notable before they turned pro? I don't understand what made Serie B notable over night when it turned pro? Sebisthlm (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The new criteria make no mention of fully professional leagues, they concern professional clubs at national level. As for change in notability with the change in professional status I would say that notability cannot be applied retrospectively a Wimbledon Old Centrals F.C. amateur player from the 1890s doesn't become notable because Wimbledon F.C. eventually reached the professional level of the game in the late 1970s. Only players who represented the club at professional level should qualify. (Sorry for the example from English football). King of the NorthEast 20:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
That's OK. I know both of us should probably throw around a lot of Argentinian examples, but I'm inclined to make a lot of Swedish examples... OK, so Botafogo would be notable in the '30ies because they played in a top division, but what about a player playing for a second division team wich one day is amateur, and the next day turns professional. What exactly is it that makes the player notable day two and not day one? My point is that notability means fame, wich has more to do with the level of football and amount of press coverage, than with the nature of the contract. Sebisthlm (talk) 21:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I see your point, but I believe the proposed criteria 1) is a much more simple and unambiguous test of notability, I know we can come up with potential problems, such as South American 2nd division footballers in the 1920s or current clubs that may or may not be professional, but these are issues that were not dealt with by the previously accepted norm either. King of the NorthEast 22:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, God forbid we'd get problems with all the bio's of '20ies Argentinian second division players we're both about to start on, eh? Sebisthlm (talk) 14:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Outstanding issues

These are criteria 4-6 and the issue of pre-professional players

I propose that we include:

7) Pre-professional (amateur era) footballers to have played top level league or cup football are considered to meet WP:BIO "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports".

the other previusly discussed criteria leave us with options.

4a)Youth players to have represented their country at the World U-20, or the highest level of continental youth football (Asia U-20, Africa U-20, S. America U-20, N&C America U-20, Euro U-21).

4b) Youth players to have represented their country at the World U-20

c) Experience of International youth football does not confer notability.

5 & 6) Personally I am opposed to the inclusion of non-playing footballers, perhaps it would be better if someone who supports their inclusion could draft some compromise proposals covering criteria 5 & 6.

-King of the NorthEast 22:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

7) Agree but only if the subject does not fail WP:N; 4a&b) Oppose per my previous comments (I just noticed even Qatar played in the World U-20, and I doubt Qatar U-20 players are notable to deserve an article here); 4c) Agree; about 5 and 6, non-playing footballers are notable if and only if the subject clearly and undoubtedly fits the general notability guideline described in WP:N. --Angelo (talk) 22:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
7) I would go as far as for the pre-professional days, to assume the leagues as they are now. Just because our (warning WP:POV soming up) current over-paid nancies are professional doesn't mean they any more worthy of an entry than good old honest pros from yesteryear. Peanut4 (talk) 22:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • OK, how does this read? "Pre-professional (amateur era) footballers to have played at the national level of league football are considered to meet WP:BIO "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports". —Preceding unsigned comment added by King of the North East (talk • contribs) 22:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
My personal view now is agree with 1-3, as well as 4b and amended version of 7 as per last KOTN suggestion. Peanut4 (talk) 23:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Agree 1, 2, 3, 4a and 7: I think we need to establish whether WP:BIO#ATHLETES would hereby be considered redundant for footballers, and to assert that, apart from the circumstances in 7, no level of amateur football of itself (including US college soccer) confers notability. Kevin McE (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
WP:BIO supersedes any WikiProject's definition of notability. If anyone, regardless of not meeting a projects definition meets the primary definitions of WP:BIO, then they meet notability regardless. matt91486 (talk) 00:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
To clarify, I was suggesting that this comprise a WP:BIO#Footballers, which would render wp:bio#athletes as inappropriate for footballers only. There is no challenge here to "primary definitions" of WP:BIO. Kevin McE (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • General Comment - I think it's gotten passed over as the debate has progressed, but I was wondering if some people could look at my comments at the end of the formalisation section before this gets too far along into setting the opinion in stone. Thanks. matt91486 (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
    • You're right. I'd overlooked it because a lot of discussion had gone on since I last logged in. I see and partly agree with your problem. To me, some top divisions, though not fully professional, are almost certainly notable for all players in them. How best to define these are exceptions is going to be difficult to sum up. Peanut4 (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
      • To me, I feel like we need to make some sort of exception in these first division cases. The problem is determining which countries would qualify. We can probably all in large part agree on which ones should, it's just a matter of are we willing to make a list of the countries who qualify for this exemption or is it better to try to figure out some more general way of stating it. At this point, I'd be in favor of a list, but it sounded like earlier in the debate that was not preferable for some people. matt91486 (talk) 00:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
        • My problem with a list is it's totally POV. Though I'm sure we could agree on just a few to immediately add to it. I'd add half of the European leagues, but am I saying that because I'm European and follow said leagues (even if just through the CL), or because they really are worthy of addition? Peanut4 (talk) 00:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
          • That's completely true. Perhaps we could come up with a caveat based on percentage of a first division that is professional? If a certain threshold of professional teams in a first division is reached, then the entire division would be considered notable? matt91486 (talk) 00:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
            • Too difficult surely to go round working out percentages for each league in the world. Peanut4 (talk) 01:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
          • Another option could be conferring it on players on any teams participating in any leagues with automatic bids for Champions League, Copa Libertadores, etc. matt91486 (talk) 00:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
            • I'm not sure. What gives player from F.C. Verbroedering Dender E.H., last season's winners of the Belgian second league, notability just because the Belgian league has a higher coefficient rating than Serbia. Peanut4 (talk) 01:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
              • Valid points, both. I don't know what parameter should be used. I know before the FIFA world rankings were ruled out in discussion as well. We can always go back to countries that have qualified for the World Cup, but then people have pointed out this opens the door to Indonesian and Haitian leagues. Perhaps teams that have qualified for the World Cup and are in the Top 100 FIFA rankings? A combination of the two? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt91486 (talk • contribs) 01:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
                • Let me get this right, what you're aiming at is a further amendment to the criteria which would allow players for semi-pro teams from the Belgian or Swiss top flight, but not semi-pro players for the Welsh or Jamaican top flight. I'm not sure that allowing any semi-pro players is desirable, and the methodology of picking particular clubs we would like to see included/excluded and then stretching the criteria to fit probably isn't conducive to creating clear, simple and unambiguous guidelines. King of the NorthEast 08:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
                  • Belgian and Swiss just happened to be the examples I picked. It's not aimed specifically at those cases by any means. I just feel generally speaking, there should be a provision for national top flights for relatively important leagues. I realize there's no particularly good way to phrase that, otherwise I'd be able to come up with some option. I'm not sure if there is a situation about to happen or if it's not likely to happen at all, but it just seems like by being in the top flight of a relatively significant league, notability would be conferred on those players regardless of their professional status. matt91486 (talk) 16:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
                    • I can see your point, I don't think that setting the cut-off point at professional status for now will prejudice against the inclusion of a well worded caveat in the future, its just that it's extremely difficult to come up with anything that includes semi-pro's from the large nations and excludes semi-pro teams from the minnows without going back to the transient world ranking figures or some irrational link to the country's international team achievements, the achievements of professional teams in the league in reaching the latter stages of Continental tournaments or some other WP:OR criteria. Recourse to any of these type of criteria would take us back to a similar position to the "fully professional league" definition, where a players notability is determined by factors outside of his own club's level of play.King of the NorthEast 16:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
                      • Yeah, I agree that there's no good way to do it. I guess if such a situation comes up, we can all just logically look the other way to the criteria and not AfD it; that's the best solution, probably, to avoid discussing it in the parameters altogether. matt91486 (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I would also go along with 4c regarding youth. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Are U-20 World Cup Golden Ball winners notable?  Jhony   09:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Are Panamanian, Syrian and Uzbek U-20 internationals notable? пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
        • No, they aren't. You misunderstood me, I just tried to reach a consensus. So would you agree with imaginary 4d) U-20 World Cup Golden Ball winners?  Jhony   20:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
          • All of the U-20 World Cup Golden Ball winners have had a professional career, so there's no need at all for an explicit criterion covering this. --Angelo (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
          • If it makes you feel any better, I created one of the missing articles on a U-20 Golden Ball winner, haha. Yes, I know this is outside the realm, just wanted to lighten the mood. matt91486 (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
            • Yeah thanks Matt91486! To Angelo: what about other players from award section, such as Golden Shoe and Golden Ball 3rd places?  Jhony   09:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Generally speaking, I'd support 4a for youth football, but would find 4b preferable to 4c. matt91486 (talk) 16:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
    • My view is youth football should not confer notability, although playing at the World Youth Cup could be a decent compromise, being the highest possible level of play for youth footballers. King of the NorthEast 16:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
      • My view is U-20 players from North Korea, Syria, Jordan and Gambia (all being teams who participated at the World U-20s) are absolutely non-notable (unless they have reached some notability with a professional team). So I support 4c. --Angelo (talk) 18:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I'd compromise at the World Youth Cup level if that's where we could find a consensus. matt91486 (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Whilst I support 4c, I would also be willing to compromise at U-20 World Cup level if it means we can actually get some criteria! пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I support 4 b). I have explained my sentiments regarding the requirement of professional league football above (under Professionality?). I think that playing for the Uzbeki U-20 is perhaps not that notable, even if they would play in a U-20 world cup. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere and with the requirements of the current criteria a player with one League 2 game is deemed notable. Now, either you actually think that one League 2 game (or a Ryman league app for a professional club) is more notable than a U-20 WC game (wich I find quite ridiculous) or you think that both are non-notable but you are more concerned that WP is going to be over-flowed with articles on n-n Uzbeki U-20 players than of n-n League 2 players (wich I find equally ridiculous). Category:Uzbekistani footballers contains 43 articles so I would question if the concern of suddenly wading around in thousands of articles on non-notable Uzbeki U-20 players is a legitimate one. In any case I'm willing to take that risk. Sebisthlm (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Note Ryman League players are not eligible for articles under the new Footy notability criteria since the league is regional, not national level. I see your point though, and would not oppose the inclusion of World Youth Cup players, although it seems others would on the "Uzbeki U-20" issue, despite the appalling lack of coverage on full international players from such countries as compared to League 2 reserve team players, who all seem to have articles. The anglo-centrism of this site is illustrated by this random example: Cat:Morecambe F.C. players 77-61 Cat:Bolivian footballers. If people don't create articles on full internationals for such non-small countries, then they are unlikely to create articles on their youth team players either. King of the NorthEast 09:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I just have realised that fully professional Russian Second Division (level 3) is not a national level too since it is divided into 5 geographical zones.  Jhony   11:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • We should think about league which are managed by a regional committee (all Italian amateur leagues), rather than leagues whose teams are divided on a regional basis (such as Serie C1, the third-highest Italian division). --Angelo (talk) 12:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • The Russian Second Division is still a a league which still covers the whole country, though, even if the teams are grouped regionally - it's kinda like the old Division Three North and South in England or the NFL in American Football. In contrast, the Ryman League only covers the South East of England, therefore it's a regional league...... ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the explanation!  Jhony   12:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lower league players

In a radical departure for the above I would suggest that there is a threshold put in for players who participate in division below the English Championship and/or the Scottish premiership and/or European equivalents. What I suggest is that they must have say 10 or 20 games under their belt prior to gaining notability. The reason I propose this is because I find it ridiculous that some guy who has played ten minutes as a substitute against Macclesfield (no disrespect to Macc Town) gains automatic notability. --Vintagekits (talk) 09:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This would seem to require some sort of rule being put into place specifying which leagues this would apply to for every country in the world - how do you envisage this being constructed.....? ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm just the ideas guy! No seriously I understand that it could be hard to work but a simple approach could be the only the players top league in each country gets automatic notabilty after one appearence but players in leagues below that would need to a certain amount be the 10, 20, 30 games. If additional leagues from some countries were to be allowed drop into the "one game" rule then this would be specifically outlined - but I would envisage that that would probably be limited to Spain, England, Italy and Germany. Thoughts?--Vintagekits (talk) 12:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe that changing the criteria for the notablity of players would be a bad idea. At the moment the criteria is pretty simple in that if you have played for a pro club you are notable after one game. This is simple for people to understand. If you add things like if at certain tier of a certain country's league system they would have to play a certain amount of games it would make it more difficult

Potential probelms of system if I have thought of. There may be more added later.

1. Mass deletion of articles that do not fulfill the criteria. This would be a large amount of articles.

2. Due to point 1 people may not be very happy that a number of articles they have created have been deleted even though at the time they were notable. This may mean that we lose a number of good editors.

3. I really like the idea that we may in the future (distant) have artciles for everyone that has played for certain clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, chelsea and also for teams like gillingham and lincoln city who maybe do not have the success of the previous ( no disrespect intended on previous clubs mentioned). No other internet site offers this and it would good that wikipedia would be the first to do this or at least try. It would give the category of players from certain clubs some kinds of completeness as they would be able to find all the players that have ever played for their club and they do not have BUT on the top of the category.

4. If a number of articles were deleted and then the community decided to reinstate the previous criteria a good number of articles would be lost and may never be created again

5. if it is not broke then do not fix it. There is nothing wrong with the current system. I understand that the criteria is changing but the fact that one game criteria has not been put forward for change could help show that people are happy with the system.

6. What would happen if for example gillingham got promoted from league one to the premiership. What would happen if someone played 1 game for gillingham while in the premiership then was injured and could never play football again. It would lead to really bad results due to the fact that when people look in the category of gillingham players that someone who has played one game for gillingham is allowed but someone else who played 10 - 15 is not all be it in league one. It does not seem fair and may lead to people unfamiliar to the criteria to become confused on why certain people are on wikipedia and why some people are not.

If possible could people please comment on what I have said above. Thanks. 02blythed (talk) 13:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I largely agree with what you have said, but points 1&2 could be used as defence for keeping non-playing footballers like Paul Rodgers and Gavin Hoyte who both somehow survived AfD. I don't think that possible deletion of articles and editors going off in a huff over it can be used as a reason for not allowing any change in notability criteria. I still think that actually having featured in one professional or international game is the simplest workable criteria, and setting different parameters for different leagues would leave us with an unneccessarily complicated system. King of the NorthEast 21:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Looking from criteria on the football notablity page am I right in saying that conference players are now deemed notable as long as you can prove that the club is pro. 02blythed (talk) 10:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Summary

My reading of the situation after several days of debate, is that everyone broadly supports 1-3, & 7, and 4b seems to be a popular compromise for youth footballers. Perhaps we could formally adopt these criteria here in order to move on to formally define notability criteria for other football related topics such as managers, clubs, leagues etc. King of the NorthEast 14:26, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with you about (4b). We were clearly debating about it, as it would allows U-20 players from countries like Uzbekistan to stay here, and I don't really agree with it. --Angelo (talk) 15:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Whilst I agree with you (I would also like to see 4c), it seems that some editors are at the other end of the scale, so 4b looks like a likely compromise. TBH the problem has never been Uzbek U-21 internationals, but mostly articles on U-16 and U-18 England internationals which people claim are notable. We need to nail something down so we can mark such articles as clear delete (I'm still sulking about all those non-notable Americans being kept as no consensus...). пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't really think the approval of a new notability guideline is gonna be a magic medicine. You can easily note the "keep" voters in the cases you mentioned are not WikiProject Football members, so they can always say this guideline is not what they really feel as being right. I am adapting my own notability opinions as well (personally, I would be much more restrictive than WP:BIO for footballers, but I know this is a minority opinion among the members of this WikiProject). I just want to make you note notability is not cumulative, you can see it instead as a boolean thing (that is, either Yes or No), and it's widely clear a very large majority of players who took part at the World Cup U-20s are actually fully professional, and often playing in a top flight division, so they would be all recognized as notable in any case. However, a slight minority of these players (especially ones from minor football nations, such as Uzbekistan and North Korea) are not professional and will never be, and they obviously fail the general notability guideline due to absolute lack of sources covering the subject in detail. Keep this in mind. --Angelo (talk) 16:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
OK if we skip 4 for now, as most of the players to have played in the latter stages of the World Youth Cup level football have gone on to play professional football and gain notability with their club teams see Spain 2007 squad and my main area of activity Argentina 2007 squad. Is there any opposition to adopting 1-3 &7. In order to move on to other areas of concern. King of the NorthEast 16:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, if we skip 4 at the moment, does it actually change the existing policy at all? That looked to be the biggest change to what we have going now. matt91486 (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I just came to the same conclusion. This seems to be an all or nothing deal. Passing only 1-3 and 7 don't really change the criteria. Moreover, if these parts are passed and no concensus is reached over 4-6, point 1 could be used against any arguments supporting 4-6 or all the precedents that supports them. Sebisthlm (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the point of the excersise was to change the criteria per se, it was to get something written on this page which remained completely blank between January 2006 & February 2007. Enforcing notability by pointing to a blank piece of paper has just allowed people to create notability criteria by precedent, (well Gavin Hoyte survived AfD, so all non-players should have their own articles, Daniel Parslow survived on his under 21 caps for Wales so all youth footballers are notable and all those MLS draftees survived having never played a professional game between them, so all american trainees are notable) if we allow notability by precedent then we'll end up with an extremely anglo-centric set of criteria aimed allowing the inclusion of all kinds of non-notable players. I can see people's frustration at other editors seeming intransigence, I would personally say a few games in the WYC infront of a global TV audience probably trumps 1 5 minutes substitute appearance for my local club Darlington F.C. but we can't force people to change their minds so we should move on and formulate official criteria for other areas and try to come back to the WYC before the next edition in 2009. King of the NorthEast 17:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I think we share the same concerns, but from different view-points. Off course you're right that the goal of this discussion isn't necessarily to change the criteria. What I meant was that, at least to me, one goal of settling this subject is to transform the rejection of the old criteria that AfD:Paul Rodgers meant, into a workable objective principle. I'm now taking a Wikibreak until sunday evening (CET) and hope for some progress in the meantime. Have a good weekend guys and gals. Sebisthlm (talk) 20:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Are we still debating? I thought I was speaking to deaf ears. Angelo, if you're still debating, how come you haven't answered any of my arguments? I've written smaller essays above that neither you or no57 have even addressed. To me, the only one actually debating "us on the other side of the table" is King of the NE. And I don't understand your point of notability as a "boolian thing" at all. Of course notability is cumulative! Do you really think that Cristiano Ronaldo is equally notable as Robert Grant (that they both are)? And I would have thought a person interested in boolian algebra would be interested in answering concerns that he is using circular arguments. Sebisthlm (talk) 18:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
As WP:N says, "a topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". If this is true, then the topic passes the notability test, otherwise it does not. This is the boolean thing I mentioned. Don't mistake notability with importance: Cristiano Ronaldo has surely a higher grade than Robert Grant in the importance scale, but both of them pass the notability test the same way. --Angelo (talk) 18:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
i actually have a couple of credits in philosophical logic, but I'm not sure it adds anything to the discussion. I think everyone would agree that a player by necessity have to be either notable or not notable, and never neither or both. The problem is that we haven't agreed on a definition of notability. Yes, a player is either notable or not, but since we don't know what notability means we can't say if he is or isn't. Sebisthlm (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Right, like November the discussion is in danger of fizzling out without conclusion once again. So can we agree that points 1-3 & 7 are suitable, point 4 will be discussed again before the commencement of the next U-20 world cup in 2009. Common-sense tells us that in certain cases WP:N and WP:BIO can overrule these criteria, but in doing so don't create precedents to be cited in AfD debates, and finally any changes to these criteria must be discussed at WP:FOOTY. King of the NorthEast 12:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Support. пﮟოьεԻ 57 12:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Support - GiantSnowman (talk) 12:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Support. I would also support point 4b). – PeeJay 12:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Support. Haven't contributed but have kept in touch with the above. Gets my support. Bigmike (talk) 15:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Support. I suggest either we badger other WP:FOOTY members to vote on this, or pass 1-3 and 7 and start a new section to discuss 4-6 fully. Peanut4 (talk) 22:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping to move on to start a discussion on the notability of clubs, which seems pertinent becuase of the wording of this AfD. Perhaps if we focus on adopting some less controversial guidelines (rather than precedents) we could come back to discuss 4-6. I am also going to propose this downstairs. King of the NorthEast 22:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Conditional Support. I support 1-3 & 7. However, since no consensus is reached on 4-6, the passing of this criteria should not, and does not:
  • Preclude a widening of the criteria in line with points 4-6, or
  • Overrule precedents in line with 4-6 (AfD:Paul Rodgers and others)
I'm making these conditions so that editors opposed to any inclusions of points 4-6 not deliberately refuse to discuss these points in order to get a more narrow criteria, wich can be used to attack the precedents that points 4-6 are based on. I think we have to come to some sort of agreement concerning these points, and I think those who oppose points 4-6 and are refusing to compromise on (or even discuss) the issue have a responsibility to move this forward. Until a consensus is reached on 4-6, this criteria (if passed) don't concern notability of youth internationals, continental club competition squad members or semi-professional internationals. Sebisthlm (talk) 16:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I see your point over point 4, and that we shouldn't formally disbar youth internationals until consensus is reached, but the majority seem to strongly oppose 5-6, the opposition to 6 is not opposition to Semi-Pro international footballers, we have agreed that all FIFA recognised international footballers are notable in point 3, it is opposition to conferring notability for simply being in a squad. I drafted the compromise proposals for 4, but as I am personally opposed to the inclusion of non-playing players I requested that someone who supports it drafts some alternatives for discussion. It would have been impossible for me, or anyone else who opposes 5&6 to do it in good faith. No-one did it so the subject got less discussion than point 4. Perhaps if someone who supports the inclusion of non-players could draft some alternatives, one of them may achieve more support than they do in their current form. I can't see how oposers of 5&6 can be expected to compromise without someone offering us something to compromise on, rather than say accepting criteria we disagree with, or allowing notability by precedent, which as we have seen many times can be affected by meatpuppetry, pile ons !votes and closures by admins with little idea about footy notability criteria (no suprise - since the notability page reamined blank for over a year) King of the NorthEast 17:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
My criticism of lack of discussion was concerning point 4. Conversely, You're quite right that the responsibility to come up with a compromise on 5 and 6 lies on those advocating these points. I'm not sure of the origin of point 6, or what it's aiming at, but point 5 seem to be some sort of translation of AfD:Paul Rodgers, wich after a quite thorough and lengthy debate (more thorough than over point 5 above) voted to keep (11-6) the player despite the lack of first team appearances. I'm willing to examine AfD:Paul Rodgers and try to summarize the discussion into a suggestion of a point 5. Sebisthlm (talk) 17:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we ought to try to move this to a conclusion, but we must be clear about the status we intend for this set of criteria. Are we looking to make a WP:BIO#FOOTBALLERS, or a sub-section of WP:BIO#Athletes, or are we simply establishing the arguments that members of this forum will use in prodded articles? Kevin McE (talk) 19:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Very good question, I can't see whats wrong with making it an actual part of WP:BIO. The exercise was simply intended to formalise some clear guidelines on footballers. Once this discussion is concluded I was hoping to clarify and formalise the guidelines on other (much less controversial) stuff such as teams, stadiums, referees etc.King of the NorthEast 21:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it fair to summarise that no-one objects to the adoption of 1-3 & 7 with a commitment to further discuss 4 at a later date other than Sebisthlm who wishes to defend the inclusion of non-players? At some point we are going to have to conclude this discussion, in order to determine guidelines for clubs, leagues, managers, referees, individual games etc. Since the majority seem to support I am going to move 7 over to the notability page. King of the NorthEast 22:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Just so I'm clear, the criteria at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability are in function and currently stand? Mattythewhite (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Tentative Support - sorry, I spaced out on the discussion for a few days. I still have concerns about national first division eligibility, but I realize that's not going to get formalized and will hopefully get decided logically should a situation arise. I'm also wary of the MLS Draft Pick conflict, especially if you plan on trying to fully incorporate it into WP:BIO. As long as we keep these situations in mind and come back and discuss point 4 later and don't completely blow it off, I'm in favor of the formalization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt91486 (talk • contribs) 05:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
For example, the hypothetical in the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rhodri Giggs: if he had appeared in a European match for Bangor City, why shouldn't that confer notability despite the side not being professional? Things like this are still not completely resolved by these parameters. I know I seem to be in the minority for worrying about it, but it's a genuine concern of mine, I'm not just trying to be difficult. matt91486 (talk) 05:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC) I guess as I read point 2 again, it does seem to confer notability. But the discussion in that AfD implied that Giggs would be non-notable even if he had because of his clubs professional status. So which is actually the case? matt91486 (talk) 06:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Continental cups

I would suggest that any player who has played in a continental (or intercontinental cup) game (not including the qualifying rounds), is notable, regardless of what sort of team he plays for. Currently if an amateur team were to make it into the Champions League their players would not qualify for an article. This would seem to be wrong. John Hayestalk 10:45, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bob Bishop

I've just had some trouble determining if this is a notable article or should have a prod on it. I just fail to see how Bishop is notable in any category. crassic\talk 04:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say to merge the relevant content into George Best, that's all the article is about. --Angelo (talk) 08:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I suppose I'll propose it, and add a little text to Norman Whiteside as well. But also note that all of the text is virtually already on the Best article. crassic\talk 12:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, in this case just make it a redirect to George Best. --Angelo (talk) 13:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FA Trophy?

Does criterion 2 allow appearances in the FA Trophy to be an implication of notability, or is this excluded? And the Conference League Cup too. Mattythewhite (talk) 18:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

People from WP:BIO have made it clear that they do not want our criteria to stand unless they are accepted by them, stating that unless they are the criteria are basically just an essay and virtually useless, so it's not really worth thinking too deeply about the implications. I can't really be bothered to trying to get them accepted, they enjoyed undermining them so much the first time round, I think they'll revel in the chance to demonstrate that nothing (no matter how sensible/consensus based) will ever be allowed to supersede their two sentence on WP:ATHLETE. I'm really quite disappointed about the whole thing. English peasant 21:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)