Wikipedia:Noted players

The verifiability of Noted Player sections (a.k.a Notable Players, Famous Players) in sports team articles is difficult to provide on Wikipedia without resorting to original research. This content guideline specifies the appropriate criteria for inclusion and exclusion of players in Noted Player sections, as an extension to the current notability guidelines.

What this guideline covers
Noted Player sections for the purpose of this this guideline, means a section that lists or otherwise identifies players that are significantly important to the history of the team in question, without including so many players that such a section unbalances the article. In terms of size, these lists should comfortably exist as a section, and interpretation of this guideline in content disputes should be toward that aim.

What this guideline does not cover
For most sports teams with articles on Wikipedia, it is not practical to list every notable player in a team article that has a biography. For this reason, lists of players/former players are often organised into standalone lists, per the Lists of people guideline. For further practicality in the cases where such lists are still very large, there may be an additional basic cut off point, such as a minimum number of appearances. These lists are outside the scope of this guideline.

Overview
By the nature of sports teams, what constitutes a noted player will vary from team to team according to circumstance. This guideline is intended to provide the basis on which team specific criteria can be agreed on if necessary at the relevant article's talk page.

It is intended that Noted Players sections give adequate coverage for the entire history of the the team in question, and not unduly focus on recent events/exploits. As such, a noted player must be noteworthy over more than one season (unless extraordinary circumstances occur), and that extensive media coverage over one season is not sufficient for inclusion in these sections; such players should instead be noted elsewhere in the article if required.

It is intended that Noted Players sections deal with exploits for that team, and therefore, a player is not noted by virtue of going on to be noted for another team, or cannot be a noted 'national team' player by virtue of being a noted club player, and vice versa.

Criteria for inclusion
In order to be listed in a Noted Player section, a player should satisfy at least one of the following criteria, and the grounds for inclusion should be explicitly stated.


 * Have been a statistical record holder for the team for either for more than one season, or for all time
 * Top X appearances for the team
 * Top X goalscorers for the team


 * Have been given an honour,
 * inducted into an official hall of fame
 * Have been named in an official team/player of the decade/century for their club
 * Have been named in an official team/player of the year/season for their league
 * Have been given a civic honour for their sporting achievements


 * Have been given a testimonial match or equivalent recognition
 * Have been part of a/multiple championship winning team(s)

A player may not be excluded from such a list, if they meet the criteria for inclusion that has already been applied to another player on the list.