Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ireland national football team (IFA)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Withdrawn by nom. Non-admin close. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 15:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ireland national football team (IFA)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This article fails wikipedia notability, it documents a period of history of a football team, which no other source treats as a seperate entity. It is intended to mislead the reader into believing it is a distinct team from the current team, quoting team stats unquoted by anyone outside of wikipedia, including players recods and chamionship wins. Even if the content of the article was found to be valid it is inconsistant with the article title Fasach Nua (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Very Strong Keep: This team represented Ireland as opposed to either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. Although the organising body, the Irish Football Association, also went onto to organise the Northern Ireland national football team, the original IFA team deserves an article of its own as it represented a different geographical area. As the two IFA teams represented two different territories – Ireland and Northern Ireland – there should be two different articles. This article is not unprecedented in Wiki. There is a whole Category:Former national football teams of similar cases. The case most similar is Czechoslovakia national football team which then became the Czech Republic national football team. This case is complicated by the fact that the IFA continued to organise an all-Ireland team long after the partition of Ireland and the emergence of a separate Republic of Ireland national football team which also briefly played as Ireland. This team was organised by the separate Football Association of Ireland. The IFA last fielded an all-Ireland team in 1950. This article is essential to the understanding of a complicated era in Irish football history and should remain. It has been translated into different two other languages and has nearly 500 links which clearly demonstrates an interest. Djln--Djln (talk) 00:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you kidding me? No, seriously, are you? Keep. Sean MD80 talk 00:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep - I'm not sure what the motivations for this are, but I find it highly unlikely that this could be considered non-notable. matt91486 (talk) 00:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * comment. The nominator's rationale is unclear to me; I'm not sure what I'm missing, and won't express an opinion as to "keep" or "delete" until things are clearer. I will say that the IFA-organized "Ireland" team is undoubtedly notable (see e.g. Richard Cox, Dave Russell and Wray Vamplew, Encyclopedia of British Football. Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0714652490. p. 189; Paul Brown, The Unofficial Football World Championships. Tonto Press, 2006. ISBN 0955218314. pp. 36-37; Bill Murray, "FIFA", in The International Politics of Sport in the 20th Century, edited by James Riordan and Arnd Krüger. Taylor & Francis, 1999. ISBN 0419211608. p. 32.; Peter J. Beck, Scoring for Britain: International Football and International Politics, 1900-1939. Routledge, 1999. ISBN 071464899X. p. 102; and on and on and on); and I see no intention to mislead: the article does an admirable job of explaining the continuity of the IFA and the discontinuity of the FIFA-recognized "national" designation of its team and recruitment territory ("Ireland" pre-1950, "Northern Ireland" post-1950). Stats, players' records, and championship wins are issues for editing, not for deletion. What's the point that I'm failing to get? --Paularblaster (talk) 01:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep How is this different from having a separate article on the Irish Free State, which is a previous version of the Republic of Ireland that continues today, claimed jurisdiction over the entire island (see the first Free State postage stamp), and was rather complicated in its history? The article appears well referenced, too.  Nyttend (talk) 02:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep as there is a clear distinction between the "scope" of the IFA team and that of the current Northern Ireland national football team. FIFA has the notion of "successor" nations for continuity of records, such as USSR → Russia, Czechoslovakia → Czech Republic, Yugoslavia → Serbia, etc. despite the obvious differences between the pre- and post- nations.  Therefore, I think the same thing applies here — the current N.I. team is clearly the succesor to the original all-Ireland IFA team, which is why there is overlap with respect to team records, etc.  — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of football (soccer) related deletions. ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep This article is about an all-Ireland team that existed upto the 1950s', There is no justification for its removal.--Padraig (talk) 08:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep As per evidence by Djln--Djln (talk) and also Andrwsc (talk · contribs) -- BigDunc (talk) 09:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep A read of Talk:Ireland national football team (IFA) will show the background to the nominator's decision to nominate. In brief, there has been debate about whether "Ireland" and "Northern Ireland" should be treated as (a) two different (albeit related) teams, or (b) one continuous (albeit evolving) team.  My position has been that the question is unanswerable; that Wikipedia should not take sides; that the article(s) should reflect this; that we should attempt to create an article that can be read equally as either (a) "the history of the defunct Ireland team" or (b) "the early history of the Northern Ireland team" depending on which viewpoint a reader has.  There is enough material to merit having two separate articles, one for the current NI team and one historical.  I understand the nominator believes that the article does not currently get the balance right, but  I think the nomination is an unfortunate burst of frustration at what has been a prolonged debate rather than a considered proposal.  There is plenty of work to be done on the article, but deletion is clearly not the answer. jnestorius(talk) 10:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I will admit the nomination came out of frustartion at the degree of intransigence in the talk page, jnestorius has shown sound judgement in the past in other articles, and is knowlegable about this subject, if this user feels it is salvageable, I will withdraw the nomination Fasach Nua (talk) 10:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.