Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 126

2019–20 Welsh Premier League
Hi, there seem to be a possible issue with this article as the page was originally created by but was later moved to draft and is currently pending review since 25 June 2019. However, in the mean time has created a new 2019–20 Welsh Premier League  page. I'm just wondering what happens now? Will both pages eventually merge? Thanks Onshore (talk) 21:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I would move the draft to the main article space, and merge+delete the new 2019–20 Welsh Premier League page. Nehme1499 (talk) 16:51, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi, Thanks for your advice. I am going to wait until the weekend, to give and  a chance to respond. Onshore (talk) 20:41, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Iraqi Premier League
I would like to ask if anyone could help with an issue we're facing now in the Iraqi Premier League topic.

Basically there are contradicting sources about the league winners in 2002/03 and 2013/14. The sources at the moment are very shaky to say the least and I think an admin should have a look at it. Some of them are coming from the same person who admitted that mistakes were made in the past.

Situation clarified: https://ahdaaf.me/2019/07/16/iraqs-post-truth-wikipedia-league-champions-how-four-titles-became-six/?cbg_tz=-120

I have a lot of sources to strengthen my argument for both 2002/03 and 2013/14 seasons, including a book, so I can provide that if asked.

Steel Dogg (talk) 13:43, 22 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I didn't think that Iraqi League was professional. Govvy (talk) 13:46, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It isn’t. What’s the implication you are going with here? Nehme1499 (talk) 14:07, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * To provide some context to everyone reading here, myself and Steel Dogg have been discussing this issue on my talk page and have each found various sources stating different things, but our opinion differs when it comes to which of these sources are most reliable and should be prioritised. Steel Dogg, we have to provide all our sources here so that the people reading can give their opinion. The source from ahdaaf.me that you are referencing is not reliable, it is a self-published opinion piece. Here are the sources I have that say Shorta were champions of the 2002/03 and 2013/14 seasons:
 * 2002/03
 * 16 May 2003: BBC: "The crowd watched in bright sunshine, as the Iraqi champions al-Shurta edged their rivals by one goal."
 * 16 May 2003: ESPN: "Iraqi champion Police beat al-Zawra 2-1 in the first soccer match in Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein last month."
 * 19 May 2003: CNN: Soccer fans in Baghdad watch a match between national champions Al Shurta and fourth-placed Al-Zawra in the first football match since the downfall of Saddam Hussein.
 * 26 August 2003: Asian Football Confederation website: "The 2002/3 season was cut short due to hostilities, with Al Shorta declared winners after two-third of the fixtures had been completed."
 * 10 January 2004: Iraq Sport: "The Iraqi league resumed on January 9, 2004 for the first time since March 2003 when the US-led invasion meant the 2002-2003 league had to be abandoned, with Al-Shurta the leaders at the time being named as champions."
 * 2013/14
 * Direct quote from Iraq Football Association second deputy Ali Jabbar: "Postponing the league matches will not benefit the competition given that there are still remaining rounds, in addition to the fact that the holy month of Ramadan is approaching and there are high temperatures at the moment, which makes the best solution to end the tournament at its current stage, and consider Al-Shorta as the champions of the league and Erbil as second place"
 * Direct quote from Iraq FA member Kamil Zaghir: "The Football Association met and decided to end the Premier League competition, keeping the clubs in the order of the last table after round 23 of the competition, which is led by Al-Shorta and then Erbil in second and Baghdad in third place".
 * However, other members of the Iraq FA denied that Al-Shorta were the champions. The contradicting statements made by the Iraq FA means it's not possible to rely on one quote or the other on their own without referring to what other sources said at the time:
 * Kooora: "Winner: Al-Shorta. Iraqi FA decided to end the league (not cancelled) with the adoption of the final league table and positions of teams on 18/6/2014 as the final ranking of the Iraqi league teams."
 * Asian Football Confederation website: here it says "Al Shorta - League champions", and here says "Having won the domestic league in back-to-back seasons" (i.e 2012/13 and 2013/14).
 * Soccerway: "Season: 2013/2014, Winner: Al Shorta"
 * Direct quote from President of Erbil SC (league runner-up) Abdullah Majid: "The Football Federation has informed us about cancelling the league and adopting Al-Shorta as the champions and Erbil as the runner-up, but we have been informed in the same context that there are two teams will play for the preliminary round of the AFC Champions League next season; in return we agreed to this proposal to end the league".
 * Secondary sources
 * Secondary sources from reputable websites and organisations which have stated that Al-Shorta won their sixth title this season (i.e. including both 2002/03 and 2013/14 titles).
 * Soccer Iraq: here, here and here
 * Asian Football Confederation website
 * Goal.com
 * Diario AS
 * Commentator for Al Kass Sports Channel says here and here and here that Al-Shorta have won six titles.
 * As you can see, the sources I am providing are from reputable organisations from the time of said season. They are not self-published pieces, or pieces from websites which don't have proper editorial oversight etc. These are all reliable sources and in my opinion to ignore these sources and say that there was no champion for these seasons goes completely against the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia which is a source-based encyclopedia based on using reliable sources to report about different topics and not reporting things from flimsy sources or pure hearsay. Steel Dogg, I ask that you publish the sources you have which state there is no champion so that the people of WP:FOOTY can decide which sources are the ones we should prioritise here. For the record, my personal opinion is that Wikipedia should say that the champions of the 2002/03 and 2013/14 seasons were Shorta (as I showed above that this is what the reliable sources say) but it should come with a note which mentions that some sources dispute this. Hashim-afc (talk) 15:17, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * For the 2003 championship, have you found any sources that report on the team winning the championship rather than referring to them as champions in reports about other games or articles about the next season? Spike &#39;em (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * If you mean a source from the time reporting solely on the end of the league, no source exists for either side of the argument. After the start of the 2003 war the Iraqi league continued for a while but due to the chaos of war news wasn't reaching media (no one even knows the date when the league officially stopped). It was only around August time when the FA became active in holding competitions again that news started to be reported specifically about the FA naming Shorta champions which I showed in sources above. But major reliable organisations like BBC, CNN and ESPN were already reporting Shorta as champions by May. Hashim-afc (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * They were just crowned champions. Isn't there any source from the IFA calling it their xth championship. The is also the possibility that the title from 2003 might have been credited to them retroactively later, so a current source would be good. Club considers it its 6th. Also AFC is unsure :-) the ar.the-afc article linked above calling it the 6th, is available in ENglish withour the ar. and calls it the 4th then. -Koppapa (talk) 04:18, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You would think so but the IFA's media presence is poor and they've never posted something like a list of champions anywhere. I posted some current sources above, the likes of Soccer Iraq, Goal.com, Diario AS etc all said Shorta just won their 6th title which includes both 2003 and 2014. Soccer Iraq has a full list of winners of every domestic Iraqi tournament on their website. Hashim-afc (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Interesting to note the author of the blog post appears to also author the generally reliable RSSSF article on the subject. SportingFlyer  T · C  06:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps reliable for other countries/leagues but for Iraq, RSSSF actually uses Wikipedia itself as a source for lots of pages (eg here and here) and has a lot of mistakes throughout (eg it says Al-Tayaran was FA Cup winner for 1973 and 1975 when according to all other sources there was no FA Cup even held in these seasons - just one of many many errors I could point out). For the 2013/14 season RSSSF actually originally said Shorta were champions (here) but it was only after Hassanin Mubarak (blog post author) became author of the page and changed it. Anyone can contact Rsssf to give them info and they usually just add it without questioning sources or anything, I don't consider something like this to be reliable for Iraqi football. There is also another website called NIIIIS.com which I expect Steel Dogg will bring up, but this website is also authored by Hassanin Mubarak. So I don't think its fair or encyclopedic to just take his word against all these other sources. Although I believe there is another journalist called Shukri Mahmoud who shares the same view with Mubarak. Still, I don't think a minority of journalists' word trumps that of the majority of reliable and reputable organisations and sites, especially primary sources. Hence why I think the best solution is to have a note next to where it says Shorta were champions which mentions that some journalists dispute it, surely the best solution here. Hashim-afc (talk) 09:21, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Other perspective


 * 2002/03

On the quotes of BBC, ESPN and CNN: I don't think we can consider the references and quotes of BBC, ESPN and CNN as reliable sources. AFC, BBC, CNN, ESPN all are no primary sources, they don't get their details direct. In this context, the Iraq FA is. They are the organisation which runs the league.

On the AFC quote:

This source clearly states: "Views expressed in the news articles are not necessarily official views of the Asian Football Confederation." So it's not even the official view of the AFC. This article was written by Hassanin Mubarak.

On the IraqSport quote:

This article was written by Hassanin Mubarak. The same source that denies that Shorta won these titles.

Furthermore these are the sources I found about the 2002/03 league:
 * 1) NIIIS
 * 2) RSSSF
 * 3) GOALZZ
 * 4) Two historians Shukri Mahmoud and Ali Al-Sabti who wrote a book on the Iraqi league say there was no winner in 2003. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhYZofIHdRQ (Listen from 51 min 49 sec) These are extracts from the book of Ali Al-Sabti: https://ibb.co/XYJPdBL https://ibb.co/XWwQcgr Quote from this book (page 395 - 407): "The league was suspended after the start of hostilities in Iraq by the United States and its allies and ended in the ninth round of the second stage, while some teams could not reach the stadium because of the lack of roads and the difficulty of travel and the fall of the Iraqi government. When the league was halted because of the outbreak of war, Al-Shorta led the league with 68 points from 28 games, Al-Talaba were second with 64 points from 27 games, Al-Najaf third with 62 points, Al-Zawraa fourth with 60 points and then Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya and Al-Minaa. The League was canceled because of the war and no team was considered champion."
 * 5) Another book from the journalist and writer Dhia Al-Munsha, one of Iraq's top sports journalists. Extracts of this book: https://ibb.co/F7S6v9f https://ibb.co/qMZZCCV


 * 2013/14

In 2014, this is what happened according to the evidence I've found.

The FA made its statement, quite vague infact stating that the league was ended and that positions in the last round played would remain and there was no relegations and that Al-Shurta and Arbil would be considered, first and second (for AFC club competition places), some reported this as Al-Shurta were crowned champions but later the FA's Kamil Zaghir and FA president Abdul-Khaliq Masoud came out and stated there was no champion named - all the sources I sent you from aliraqinews to alburthanews will show this line of events.

Line of events

Time of events:
 * 3pm press release made public
 * Later reports of Al-Shurta being named champions
 * 5:57 - FA president states - Al-Shurta is not named champion

Source Press Release

The time of events from aliraqinews - the links are dead, but the same articles are available online: here

Translation of this source:

"The Iraq FA is only naming the Police Club as a Premier League champion only on the outside level   Forat News (2014/6/18 19:35)   The Iraqi Football Federation refused to name the Police Club as a champion of the Premier League and only to name at the external level only.  The spokesman for the Iraq FA Kamil Zaghir told the {Euphrates News} that "During the meeting of the Iraq FA today refused to name the Police Club as league champion at internal level and to do so only on the outside."  "The first four teams (Police, Arbil, Nadi Baghdad, Air Force) will participate in external competitions in that order," he said.  A source in the Iraqi Football Federation has told the {Euphrates News} earlier that "the Iraqi Football Federation held a meeting and decided to end the Iraqi league and consider the police club the winner and the club Arbil in second place," noting that "the Union felt it was appropriate to end the league due to the security conditions experienced by the country. " - the time of this statement is important because it comes several hours after the statements noted in Al-Kass etc and other outlets."

On the SoccerIraq quote: Wait a minute, what makes SoccerIraq a reputable website according to you? It's established by some Iraqi fans with no proper editorial oversight. Also, it seems to me that hashim-afc himself made contributions to this page.

On the Al-Kass quote:

This makes no sense. Just because a commentator from Al-Kass stated someone you consider him a reliable source? Again, they don't get their details direct. Maybe they even got it from Wikipedia.


 * Interesting to note the author of the blog post appears to also author the generally reliable RSSSF article on the subject. SportingFlyer  T · C  06:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

On RSSSF: On rsssf, Hashim also made changes by the site and stated that Al-Shorta won the league in 2003. Hassanin only contributed the NT details to NIIIIS https://twitter.com/hassaninmubarak/status/1153616181250732032

My personal opinion:

Honestly I get the feeling that Hasim tries to find the right outcome for his club (because he's an Al-Shorta fan) Whenever a source states the opposite of his views, he claims that it's not reliable, but how can he say that while he used the same sources for other articles, told me a couple of years ago that they were reliable (RSSSF and Goalzz), and even used the AFC website and IraqSport as source (while Hassanin admitted that he made mistakes).

This is what he wrote to me on 5 May 2015:

2013-14 Iraqi Premier League winner

'''RSSSF (Iraq section) and Goalzz are sites that specifically specialise in publishing news and results about Iraqi football. RSSSF has an extensive database on the history of the Iraqi League. Goalzz has results, fixtures, tables etc of the Iraqi League. They are both very reliable sources in this context.'''

Hassanin Mubarak is a respected journalist and football writer. Niiis, IraqSport and RSSSF are the most reliable sources when it comes down to Iraqi football. We are using them all over the Iraqi football articles, but when it comes down to this sensitive topic, all of a sudden it's not reliable?

Steel Dogg (talk) 10:51, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Steel Dogg for posting your sources. I responded to most of points about me on my talk page already. I said 4 years ago RSSSF was reliable (I can't change my opinion over 4 years?), after I started contributing some info to them too and finding out lots of their info is inaccurate I now think it's not a reliable source. How can it be a reliable source if a normal fan like me can add things onto it. When I said Goalzz is reliable I mean since they started keeping their own records around 2005/2006 time, before that it didn't exist and just get their details from RSSSF which I showed is not reliable. For 2014 Goalzz states clearly Shorta was champion. I have never edited Soccer Iraq page and accusations of bias are also baseless and my past edits can show I have actually removed titles that were incorrectly attributed to Shorta on Wikipedia. But, even if i was bias, it doesn't mean what I'm saying is any less credible (ad hominem) so this is not relevant to the subject and not helpful. Apologies if I am wrong about Mubarak authoring NIIIS - still it was founded many years after 2003 and nowhere gives any evidence to show that the primary sources stating Shorta as champions are wrong. We are using such websites on pages where there are no disputes about the content because they are easy to retrieve, in cases where there are disputes we should prioritise the reliable primary sources like BBC or CNN etc. You say the FA was vague but Ali Jabbar clearly stated word for word that Al-Shurta are considered champions without any mention of AFC competitions or anything (even the Erbil Club president said it), what part of this is at all vague?? The contradiction in FA statements is why we should consider what reliable primary sources were saying. Anyway I don't want to ramble on, I don't deny there are sources stating there's no champions, just that I don't think they are as reliable as the opposing side, and nearly all if not all of them are not from the actual time of study. That's why I think the best solution is to state Shorta as champions and have a mote stating that some journalists dispute it. Anyhow, I'm glad that by bringing it to WP:FOOTY we may achieve a real consensus, I'm just here to give my opinion and try to follow the Wiki policies and guidelines to the best way possible in solving this issue and I hope we can achieve solution the right way regardless of what it is. Hashim-afc (talk) 12:27, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Statement of FA official:

I just wanted to add this one. Hassanin Mubarak asked Waleed Tabra, Media Officer of the Iraqi Football Association about the winner of the 2013/14 Iraqi League. This was his answer:

https://ibb.co/qyfc1LF This is his Facebook https://www.facebook.com/waleed.tabra.9 Source for Tabra's role: : "Waleed Tabra, media officer for the Iraqi national team, told Al Jazeera that he could not find the words to describe the joy brought on by the win."
 * This is my exact point Steel Dogg, Waleed Tabra says the competition is cancelled, whereas other FA members like Ali Jabbar chairman of competitions committee said that it was not cancelled but ended and keeping the current positions, and he says Shorta are officially considered champions, whereas Abdul Masood denies there's champions (by the way was Tabra still an FA member in 2014? The source you posted is from 2007 and in his message he is referring to the FA as 'they'). Don't you see that this is a clear contradiction between the statements of 4 different FA members? and why its wrong to just pick out certain quotes and rely on them without seeing what other sources like Kooora/Goalzz, Soccerway, AFC etc said at the time which all said Shorta as champions. The IFA's incompetence is why we're in this situation having to look at other sources. Hashim-afc (talk) 13:39, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

You keep on repeating Ali Jabbar but if you see, this was one of the first statements, the final statements were made by Kamil Zghair (to Forat TV) and Abdul-Khaliq Masoud to (Aliraqinews). The timeline of events clearly shows this.

http://socceriraq.net/2018/09/09/2018-19-iraqi-premier-league-preview-and-predictions/ This article is written by 'Yaseen Kabash'. I'm pretty sure this is you so how credible is this website? Where is the editorial oversight? Same goes on for Shorta webs, which you refer to in the Shorta articles.

Steel Dogg (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No that's not me, my name is Hashim and I have never written anything for Soccer Iraq. If you think I'm going to get involved in your childish accusations match then you're mistaken. This is meant to be a cooperative discussion where we talk about our sources and things we disagree on and come to a consensus. If you want to turn it into something else with false personal speculations, ad hominems and accusations about being biased and start talking about other pages then I see no reason to continue this back and forth. Anyone reading this can see that you are trying to completely ignore a clear and unequivocal statement from the Iraq FA Competitions Committee chairman which clearly contradicts the other FA quote, also ignoring the 2014 page for Goalzz (yet trying to use the same website for your 2003 argument even though Goalzz didn't exist then), now suddenly you're interested in editorial oversight of my sources despite ignoring all the times I pointed out how your sources don't have editorial oversight. I've said my opinion and it's down to anyone that bothered to read all this to give their opinion. Hope this gets solved in the proper way and not through edit wars. Have a good day. Hashim-afc (talk) 17:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

In order to come to the right conclusion, it's important to know who's behind websites like Shorta webs or SoccerIraq (like you were questioning Hassanin's role in editing some websites). We are talking about the reliability of sources. How reliable are they if you possible edited it yourself or had contributed in another way? I see you're constantly referring to a website that's created by some Shorta fans. Or is it the official website?

Just look at the references of the Iraqi Premier League:
 * Al-Shorta website: Fanmade website or official?
 * RSSSF: I thought it was an unreliable source?
 * Kooora: This is what you said: "Also, the Kooora forums is certainly not a reliable source, it's a forum anyone can post anything there"
 * NIIIS: Not reliable according to you
 * SoccerIraq: Same as Al-Shorta website

My point is that we're using these sources for almost every page on Wikipedia. And you are using them too. Just have a look at the Shorta page which you are editing. I see the sources I mention (and which are 'unreliable' according to you).

Maybe we need to get some clarification on these questions first. I already told you that I appreciate your work on Wikipedia. It's not a personal attack or whatsoever. I just want Wiki to be as accurate as possible, and I think we need to make some changes.

Steel Dogg (talk) 18:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * This is a really interesting problem, since the sources we're using are sources which have been edited by at least one if not more of the interested parties in the conflict. I don't see how we can possibly claim Al-Shorta won these titles since we can't verify they won them. Since it's disputed, I think we should also note the dispute, and that Al-Shorta have claimed the title for these seasons, since some secondary publications have reported they've won their sixth. I don't really see any other way forward. SportingFlyer  T · C  19:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * As SportingFlyer has stated, there's definitely too much doubt over the validity of those years to add them as wins for Al-Shorta; however, I have had a look at their article and it currently doesn't mention 02-03 and 13-14 anywhere, so in my opinion too it would be fair and informative to note in appropriate places on that page and at List of Iraqi football champions that several sources (and the club? Do they have an official site? this was the most prominent, seems a bit home made) listed them as winners, citing the sources given. Crowsus (talk) 15:03, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Complex infobox question
While looking for other examples of players who left a club without ever playing, I came across Clive Allen, whose infobox has sections for "association football career" and "football career" (the latter referring to his brief stint playing American football). Now obviously this doesn't make sense for someone who is British, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the latter, in a bewildering infobox which has sub-boxes embedded within it......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:28, 24 July 2019 (UTC)


 * You mean the  bit? There is   don't know if that helps. Govvy (talk) 14:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It is based on how the infoboxes in question embed into others. Infobox football biography has a title function that shows the text "Association football career"; the other one (which redirects to Infobox CFL biography) has the heading "Football career" (and in a different format). As the embedding is so poor, I would suggest removing his American Football career from it, as it is clearly not as noteworthy as his football one. Number   5  7  14:58, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed - for footballers who have other careers (other sports/media) I am hesitant to 'embed' other infoboxes with some key exemptions (eg Beckham). GiantSnowman 20:29, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Determining the official branding of national teams
How is the official branding of a national football team typically determined for Wikipedia's purposes? There doesn't appear any guidance given regarding the use of team badges anywhere on WP:FOOTY or Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/National teams so it's not so clear. Is it determined by what badge appears on the individual team's jersey, the team's official website, or in some other way? It appears that different national federations do things differently, so is the common practice just to defer to what the national federation chooses to do or is there sort of an WP:OFFICIALNAME/WP:COMMONNAME type of guideline for football team badges. Here are three examples, though there are probably lots more. Anyway, it might be a good idea to add something for general reference (like some other WikiProjects have done with respect to image use) to help clarify which badge version (uniform or website) should be used in cases where they aren't the same as well as how the official team's branding is to be determined. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:05, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) The first example is Italy. File:FIGC Logo 2017.svg is a PD licensed file uploaded to Commons, so it's copyright status is not really an issue. The four stars are meant to represent the number of times Italy national football team has won the World Cup. right? So, it's use in the main men's team article and even perhaps the Italian Football Federation makes sense. It, however, is also be being used in the beach soccer, futsal, men's reserve/youth team articles and even a women's youth team article. I'm just curious as to whether the logo is also used to represent any other teams besides the men's national team.The Italy women's national football team, btw, does use the starless File:FIGC Logo 2017 (no stars).png, but the badge with the stars can be seen used here, which I'm assuming is the official website for all teams under the FIGC's control including the women's team. From this photo, it looks like the beach soccer team uses the badge with the stars but this photo seems to show the women's team using the badge without the stars.
 * 2) The second example is Brazil. This photo of a women's national team player shows File:Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (escudo).svg being used on the uniform. The Brazilian file is non-free and it's non-free use was recently discussed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2019 June 20 where it was felt (including by myself) that the star version shouldn't be used for the women's team. While it's true, however, that a starless version can be seen in the game score headline here, all of the photos on that same webpage show the star-version being used on the women's team uniform.
 * 3) The last example is the United States. The USWNT has won four World Cups so they will likely soon (if not already) have badges with four stars on their uniforms based upon their website; the USMNT hasn't won any World Cups so their badges have no stars. Same for Mens U-23, beach soccer, para-olympic soccer; the women's reserve/youth teams, on the other hand, seem to use use the same logo as the USWNT (U-23 WNT, U-17 WNT). So, it appears that USSF does treats team branding differently from the Italian and Brazilian ones.
 * I think there is one important thing to consider: the Federations most likely just use the same shirts of a certain gender for all the gender's departments for economical reasons. For instance, it wouldn't make sense for the USA Federation to create women's shirts without stars for the youth (and beach soccer/futsal ecc...) departments as they can just use the shirts used by the women's senior team. This is also, for example, the case of Juventus F.C., Juventus F.C. Under-23 and Juventus F.C. Women who all have the 3 stars above the badge (when only the men's A team should have them). Italy's case is slightly different, as they have just recently removed the stars from their shirts (starting from the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup). Nehme1499 (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 14:16, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty good point, and might actually explain why such a thing is being done. Some teams may even create more varieties of uniforms, etc. in order to sell more merchandise. Even so, the organization in control is choosing the brand a team in such a way for whatever reason. It might make sense to include cited textual content about the choice of branding in the article, but I'm not sure how appropriate it is for Wikipedia to indriectly comment on this by choosing a different badge for the main infobox (even if it contextually makes more sense) without a good policy or guideline based reason for doing so. So, if Country A has won 10 World Cups and Country A's national federation decides that it wants to use a 10-star logo to identify all of its national teams, then I think that's probably what should be used as long as their are no file copyright or other non-free content concerns about the logo use. Similarly, if Country A only wants to use the 10-star logo for the World Cup winning team and a different logo for its other teams, then I think that (once again as long as their are no file copyright or non-free content concerns) probably what Wikipedia should do. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:24, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It may be possible to only need a single version of the badge (with the relevant stars) while making it compatible with other team infoboxes by using HTML tags in a manner similar to Philip F. Anschutz Trophy. It's a software-based crop that circumvents the copyright issue in this image.  Sounder Bruce  22:31, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * This is something I've seen done with other images before. For a public domain or otherwise freely licensed image upoloaded to Commons, it's probably not really needed since there's usually not a problem uploading similar files to Commons. For a non-free image, however, this might make some sense but it might also run afoul of WP:NFCC since it will be each use of the file (including cropped uses) which will still need to comply with WP:NFCCP. Then, there's the question of whether the crop accurately reflects the team's chosen branding or simply Wikipedia's opinion on how the team should be branded.On a side note, I'm not sure if the "crop" of the "Anschutz Trophy" is 100% OK from a copyright standpoint, even if it's done using software because it essentially seems equivalent to creating a WP:DERIVATIVE work focusing on a copyrighted element of a larger freely licensed work. You couldn't crop the Commons photo to create a new image; so, it seems that essentially doing the same thing to obtain the same end result might not be OK. Has there been previous discussion about this type of image formatting somewhere? -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:42, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Loans that never started
It was announced last night that Nathan Thomas, who joined Gillingham on loan a couple of weeks ago, has had his loan terminated before the season has even started. Should the spell be listed in his infobox with a total of 0 games played, or not listed at all given that he never even had the opportunity to play a competitive game? Obviously the whole bizarre turn of events would be mentioned in the prose, this question relates only to the infobox..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:06, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, doesn't it also impact the categories, i.e. should he or shouldn't he be included in Category:Gillingham F.C. players? The Rambling Man (REJOICE!) 10:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * A good point well made, sir! :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes I would say so. Players go on loan to places in the regular season and end up not featuring. If the paperwork was completed then there should be documents to say he joined and documents to say the loan was terminated. It's not like he had a trial or something, it was an officially sanctioned loan move.--EchetusXe 13:42, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I would consider him to have moved to Gillingham on loan, with 0 apps and 0 goals. This is similar to Hassan Maatouk who had joined Emirates Club on a permanent deal in the summer, only to see him being sold 1-2 months later for economical reasons by the club. I added him as an Emirates Club player, as he has officially signed the paperwork, and put 0 goals and 0 apps in the infobox. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 14:18, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That's also what was done at Kemy Agustien, who joined Nuneaton Boro in June 2018 and left on or before 1 August. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:24, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with those above. If the transfer officially went through, then I'd say it should be added. R96Skinner (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree above - include it. GiantSnowman 20:28, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree - remove 0 goals and 0 apps. The OP for this section stated "...this question relates only to the infobox..." the parameters for the infobox state that information within one relates to "Senior career* / * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only" Therefore under that current wording, a person on loan to a club with 0 goals & 0 apps should NOT have that club listed in the infobox, but quite sensible for the loan to be mentioned in text of the article. In my opinion, for the loan refs to be included the infobox wording has to be changed. RossRSmith (talk) 22:18, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * So, with that logic, back-up goalkeepers with zero league appearances, e.g. Lee Grant or Robert Green, shouldn't have their spells listed in the infobox? R96Skinner (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree - the suggestion that if a player made 0 appearances for a club then that club should not be listed in the infobox at all is nonsense. That would mean, for example, that we'd have to remove Jørgen Nielsen's time at Liverpool, which lasted for five years! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:25, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The footnote on the infobox is there to indicate that the stats shown should include league games only (i.e. not including cups). It isn't intended to mean that only clubs for which the player made a league appearance should be listed...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

CD Tacón / Las Blancas
The article CD Tacón, about a Spanish women's football team that seems to be in the process of becoming the women's team for Real Madrid needs updating. Particularly with mention of "Las Blancas", which may be the official name or a nickname for the (new?) team. Most of the sources seem to be in Spanish.

Relatedly the Las Blancas redirect to CD Tacón is being discussed at Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 July 24, where you are invited to comment. Thryduulf (talk) 07:55, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Official name or common name?
Hi, I have spoken to a Lebanese football expert who let me know that the Lebanese Football League doesn't have its own official logo. The logo previously used on the article was specifically a logo MTV (the TV channel that broadcasts the games in Lebanon) uses for the league. I had based the official name of the league on that particular logo, which apparently isn't official. Looking at official documents by the Lebanese Football Association, the name of the league is بطولة الدوري العام لأندية الدرجة الأولى, which roughly translates to "General club championship first division". The name could be modified to الدوري اللبناني الدرجة الأولى, which means Lebanese First Division (which would standardize the naming of the Lebanese football league system. However, the name doesn't seem to be very common in English (437 results) compared to "Lebanese Football League" (35,500) or "Lebanese Premier League" (1,110,000).

What should the name be? Lebanese First Division, as it is the official name of the league, Lebanese Football League, as the (unofficial) logo says, or Lebanese Premier League, as it is the most common name? Thanks, <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 13:22, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

"Deal subject to the completion of regulatory processes"
Hi everyone. Quick question (I hope): Should "The deal is subject to the completion of regulatory processes." in Arsenal's announcement of William Saliba transfer to the club keep us from updating the article to mention the transfer? Robby.is.on (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No; I always update even when there is the standard disclaimer "subject to international clearance" or whatever. GiantSnowman 19:05, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. Robby.is.on (talk) 19:30, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Clubs in national team squad lists
User:TrailBlzr claims that it is the norm among national football team articles for a player's club to be updated if the player is transferred after the squad is announced. If the transfer occurred between the squad announcement and the date of the matches for which the squad was announced, I might agree, but it makes no sense to change the club months after the matches were played since the player was not with that club at the time. I've been trying to enforce this (with great success) for the Wales national football team article, but as I say, TrailBlzr claims that editors on the other 200-ish national team articles have not been doing the same and that I should consult the WikiProject for prior examples of this having been discussed. I am an experienced editor and am unaware of any time this has been discussed in the past, so here I am, asking for input now. – PeeJay 23:28, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * England, Scotland, ROI, Northern Ireland, all continental European teams, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Honduras, El Salvador, Egypt, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and China are all using the player's current club, not the club they were attached to at the time of the call-up. I have yet to check the rest of Asia, Africa, and South America but at this point it's pretty clear Wales is out of step with the rest of the national team articles in this regard. - TrailBlzr (talk) 23:34, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I fear you are a victim of the is–ought problem: just because something is a certain way does not mean it ought to be that way. I have presented my argument: it simply does not make sense to update the club in this manner, and you have not presented an argument for doing so other than "that's the way it is". – PeeJay 23:49, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Because having Aaron Ramsey listed as an Arsenal player in March 2020 after he's played nearly a full season with Juventus makes absolutely no sense, yet that is exactly what would happen if your policy was implemented and Ramsey wasn't called up. It's obvious why you are the only editor who has ever had a problem with the way it is now. -- TrailBlzr (talk) 02:32, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Wait a minute, are we talking about the current squads, the recent call-ups or both? – PeeJay 09:46, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "Caps and goals updated as of 11 June 2019 after the match against Hungary." maybe should say "Caps, goals and clubs updated as of 11 June 2019 after the match against Hungary."--EchetusXe 10:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I would say both lists should reflect the club at the time of the match in question. If there was a player in the "recent call-ups" list who had retired since the game in question, I wouldn't expect his club to be shown as "retired", as it would look stupid, and on the same principle players who have moved clubs shouldn't be updated.  Maybe the heading needs to be changed to clarify this? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:15, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * We do mention though in the "recent call-ups" list when players retired (either from football as a whole or from international football). And I think this is useful as it lets readers know that the player will most likely not be called-up again (unless he does a Messi and comes back from international retirement) --SuperJew (talk) 10:33, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Well I think either way, the heading needs changing, as just having "club" is ambiguous. If the decision is made to go with the current club, then the heading should say that, maybe (if this is possible without too much work) with a footnote saying "may not have been the player's club at time of last call-up" or similar). -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:37, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's not really necessary to list a player's club in the "Recent call-ups" section, since players remain in that list for a year after the last match for which they were in the squad, and they could potentially play for three different clubs in that time. – PeeJay 11:57, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I think the intention of the table is clear enough although "club" alone as a column header is a shade ambiguous. It is illogical (and, per Hume, prescriptive) to assert that Ramsey's club is Juventus when he was an Arsenal player on that date. It is the date that is key to this table. I would change the column header too, but to something like "club on call-up" to emphasise the intention of the table as a description of then and not now. No Great Shaker (talk) 15:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

The player is clearly most important, date only matters because it needs to fall within the last 12 months to qualify as a "recent call-up". Therefore the player's present club should be listed. A note at the top of the recent call-ups section reading "Player's clubs updated as of 18 July 2019" is something I am open to because it would remove the ambiguity entirely. - TrailBlzr (talk) 03:18, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I have added "Clubs updated as of July 18, 2019" to 🇨🇦 canada recent call-ups. - TrailBlzr (talk) 03:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You are completely missing the point of the table. It lists players called up in the last twelve months and records their details at the time of the last match they played in and that is why the date is the key variable in the table. Ramsey was an Arsenal player at the time of his last match. It is factually incorrect to state that he was a Juventus player at the time of his last match for Wales. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:44, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * We have different interpretations of the purpose of the table. However, my interpretation is inline with the 99% of national team articles. TrailBlzr (talk) 18:08, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You are again a victim of the is–ought problem and probably argumentum ad populum too. Just because something is done a certain way, even by a large majority of the population, doesn't mean it's right. Can you provide any reason why things should be done this way without referring to "well that's the way it is on other pages". – PeeJay 12:18, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, I have just noticed that the players' ages in the "recent call-ups" section are also as of "now" rather than the date of the match - on the Wales page, Gwion Edwards has his age listed as 26, but at the time of his last cap he was only 25. Minor, I know, but another indication that the scope of this section is very confused..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:52, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually having the age as of "now" is very useful for youth national teams (which usually have the recent call-ups as "last 12 months and eligible for selection"), that way you can easily see if a player is no longer eligible for selection. --SuperJew (talk) 14:23, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Just food for thought - why exactly is the club column even important? I'm all for club and international football to be completely separate in this way. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:54, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it gives a certain view of the club, where the majority of the players play gives a general rating of the squad. Also for example, African Nations Championship only allows players from the national leagues of Africa. I've also seen many media releases talking about the clubs' of players. --SuperJew (talk) 14:28, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It makes sense in the table about the current squad, but is it necessary for the table of recent call-ups? – PeeJay 16:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Is the recent call-ups section necessary at all? --SuperJew (talk) 16:12, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think so. Players may miss an international week because of injury but it would be weird not to see them listed as current players, hence the section. – PeeJay 16:26, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * indeed. I think this was the point. Current squads have a team list due to various factors. The recent call ups are a little irrelevant to have club lists. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski  (talk • contribs) 12:22, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

South West Challenge Cup
I'm a little rusty on how to nominate articles for deletion, but it seems fair to me to nominate this one, if someone's willing to add the necessary template. It's very out of date, and I'm not sure if it's still even in existence. The official website was dead, so I removed it. Prior to what was supposed to be my updating it today, no human editor has touched the article for five years. - <span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.4em"> NewTestLeper79  talk  21:28, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You can nominate the article for deletion as explained in WP:AFD, but being out-of-date and not edited in some time (WP:NOEFFORT), or being no longer in existence (WP:OUTOFBUSINESS) are not necessarily considered valid reasons for deletion. Wikipedia notability doesn't disappear over time per WP:NOTTEMPORARY. I'm not saying the article shouldn't be deleted; just not necessarily for the reasons you're giving. As for WP:DEADLINK, sometimes archived versions can be found so it's not always necessary to remove them per WP:KDL; in this case though, maybe WP:ELDEAD comes into play. I did do a quick check to see if I could find an archived version, but couldn't. Maybe someone else will have better luck. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:56, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * As stated, the article being out of date and/or the tournament being defunct are 100% not valid reasons for deletion, however I am unconvinced of the notability of this pre-season tournament...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:03, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Fixture tables contain a contradiction in terms
Fixture tables in the Results section of articles, e.g. in 2019–20 Premier League, use the "Sports results" module, so all of them contain the same contradictory statement: "For upcoming matches, an "a" indicates there is an article about the match." There cannot be an article about a match that hasn't been played yet! I have opened a discussion at Module talk:Sports results. Input would be welcomed. Scolaire (talk) 11:46, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The module has now been edited, but we'd still like input from others as to whether the wording can be further improved. Scolaire (talk) 15:44, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Club Seasons Articles
Which club seasons are deemed notable of a standalone article? For example, FK Kukësi is playing in the Europa League this season, while Luftëtari isn't playing in any continental competition. Are they both still worthy of an article due to the fact they play in a fully professional league, that being the Albanian Superliga? User:SmackJam (Talk) 20:58, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Per WP:NSEASONS, all that's needed is participation in a WP:FPL-listed league. So, I believe, Kukësi and Luftëtari are eligible. R96Skinner (talk) 21:29, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:NSEASONS is poorly defined and not exclusionary, though - if the page passes WP:GNG it should, in theory, be kept. SportingFlyer  T · C  21:46, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Colourized banners
Hello again,

Recently users have started added colourized banners again to pages such as 2019–20 Chelsea F.C. season. We have recently had this discussion in January at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 121. User:Abhisu4 feels very strongly about including the colours and we are now at the point of WP:3RR. Abhisu's point is that other pages use the colours so the Chelsea page should as well, they site 2019–20 Manchester City F.C. season, 2019–20 Liverpool F.C. season, etc. So I bring this to the people of WP:Football again. I should add that I stand by my original statements in January and agree with the editors' positions there. The less colourised banners the better. It gets in the way of WP:ACCESSIBILITY and is just generally blinding for no quality reason.  Krazytea  (talk) 06:01, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree the colours should be consistent and neutral per WP:ACCESS. SportingFlyer  T · C  06:05, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I've just boldly fixed Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea. Kind of expecting to be reverted on all of them, unfortunately. Are there any others which need fixing? SportingFlyer  T · C  06:12, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * If you go to my talk page, user Abhisu sites about a dozen pages that use colours as reasons for their continued inclusion. User talk:Krazytea will list a healthy chunk more.  Krazytea  (talk) 06:16, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It should only be removed if it fails MOS:CONTRAST. If a contrast test has been done and it is ok, then there is no reason to remove colourised banners. Jopal22 (talk) 06:22, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * These are some pages I've found that use their club colors as banners: 2019–20 Arsenal F.C. season, 2019–20 Aston Villa F.C. season, 2019–20 A.F.C. Bournemouth season, 2019–20 Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. season, 2019–20 Burnley F.C. season, 2019–20 Crystal Palace F.C. season, 2019–20 Everton F.C. season, 2019–20 Leicester City F.C. season, 2019–20 Liverpool F.C. season, 2019–20 Manchester City F.C. season, 2019–20 Newcastle United F.C. season, 2019–20 Norwich City F.C. season, 2019–20 Sheffield United F.C. season, 2019–20 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. season, 2019–20 Watford F.C. season, 2019–20 West Ham United F.C. season,2019–20 Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. season,2019–20 FC Barcelona season, 2019–20 Juventus F.C. season. Bear in mind these are some pages that I've found, there's bound to be plenty more. Personally I don't feel that using club colors as banners is a problem unless it becomes illegible. And instead of going back and reverting all these pages it would be better to work with the football community and let all the pages display their club colors.Abhisu4 (talk) 07:07, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Could you state a reason for displaying these colours, other than it looks nice or that other pages have it? --SuperJew (talk) 07:56, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * also side note to references are cited (not sited) :) --SuperJew (talk) 07:56, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Personally don't seem the harm in having it as long as it is legible and follows the guidelines. Also does a good job in educating the reader of the clubs color and instills pride and a sense of welcoming for the clubs supporters. Abhisu4 (talk) 08:08, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Still, just "I like it". I don't think it's needed and an "ACCESS" question first. Kante4 (talk) 08:13, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing against using styles, and there is no need to remove the style code what so ever, secondly colourising must adhere to the more neutral spectrum. People are colour blind to different fields of vision and each colour clash spectrum must be avoid at all costs. As has pointed out MOS:CONTRAST has one such example, there are are plenty of other examples, there should be a chart somewhere. Also the check I did Chelsea season page didn't violate WP:ACCESS otherwise I would of changed the colours. Govvy (talk) 08:19, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah totally agreed mate, as long as the contrast does not create a problem it should be allowed. And also I'd like to add that the presentation of a page is just as important as any other thing. So to the people saying it should not be there just cause it 'looks good' might want to rethink. The presentation of a page is the first thing that attracts the reader.Abhisu4 (talk) 08:30, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * One man's "looks good" is another man's "looks garish and distracting". Spike &#39;em (talk) 20:10, 28 July 2019 (UTC)


 * It looks as if Burnley, Aston Villa, and Liverpool all have their colours added back since I restored them to neutral yesterday. We're going to need a definitive consensus here, maybe even an RfC? SportingFlyer  T · C  21:32, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * As far as I am aware, according to what is already written in the documentation when using styles and colours it clearly states to make sure that you shouldn't overly use them and make sure they are not clash colours. So I am not sure what consensus you're looking for. Govvy (talk) 21:41, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think this is the problem though, there is definitely an extraordinary amount of overuse right now. There are particular culprits or suspect pages, they are all sports related. It is such a slippery slope in terms of the amount of colour that is being used. Is Wikipedia turning into an Angelfire or MySpace related website where editors create their own spaces for their favourite sports team? Do McDonalds or Amazon related pages have extensive use of colours on their pages, where does it stop? Or is Wikipedia a neutral encyclopedia that allows for reporting of annual schedules, statistics, players, etc. If anything when it comes to use of colour I could see some indication in the info/nav boxes. I see no reason why colour is used in every single table. It is excessive and this should be emphasized in MOS. This is not only related to association football but all sports pages IMO.  Krazytea  (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Looked at a couple other sports and it's there too. Perhaps a broad RfC would be useful. SportingFlyer  T · C  20:33, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it would absolutely be useful. Let's proceed with that.  Krazytea  (talk) 20:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't know about other projects, but you're really not suppose to put any colourisation in info boxes. I really don't know why you want to do an RfC, have you not read all the documentation? Govvy (talk) 21:00, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Again I think it is more than WP:ACCESS, it is also WP:ILIKEIT, and WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. It is also more than just the WP:Football project. Let's get a larger RfC for MoS input on these sports pages, it doesn't hurt and this is a pervasive problem. I would also add I am not sure what your position is on this, you seem to be providing contradictory statements.  Krazytea  (talk) 21:22, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Okay, so having read through most rules and regulations the reason it adheres to WP:ACCESS and is not WP:ILIKEIT or WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is pretty simple. The colors being selected are the individual teams color. They are NOT any arbitrary colors that is being selected by the editor based on his/her preference. Hence there is a clear link between the colors being used and page itself. Also I'd like to point out that the main pages of the clubs (not the individual seasons pages) mentioned above do not make use of these colors. Moreover, almost every single page of the teams in Basketball (NBA, EuroLeague, National Basketball League etc), NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS, National Lacrosse League, Australian Football League, Cricket leagues (Indian Premier League, Big Bash League, etc) and many other different sports league that I don't even know of use the colors of their teams not only on their individual season pages but also on the main page of their team (Do have a look please!). With so many different sports league teams across the world displaying their colors on their pages, I'm sure a lot of Administrators globally have vetted the pages and found nothing wrong with it, thereby finding them to be adhering to the rules. So I really don't see where your problem arises from considering the colors follow MOS:CONTRAST and do not break any wikipedia rule. Abhisu4 (talk) 22:20, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Currently five editors have said otherwise. Also you're last point of "I'm sure" is pretty much a classic example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. We'll get some further commenting.  Krazytea  (talk) 23:46, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I think the widespread use of colours in other sports, including the infoboxes, suggests that there is no overriding wikipedia rule that prohibits using coloured headers, or not one that is enforced. The football project seems an outlier in not using coloured headers extensively. However, some team colours do seem problematic for contrast. The Man City pale blue and white and the Burnley and Aston Villa claret and blue have poor contrast. West Ham uses claret and white which is much better contrast. That said, if it is determined that only some team colours are acceptable for contrast, then I foresee trouble ahead. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The Man City colours has always been a little bit of a concern to me, but the odds are very rare indeed for someone to not be able to read it, I wouldn't be to concerned about that, as someone of that rare form of colour-blindness will most likely need to set their screen to specific settings and then they wouldn't actually be seeing those colours anyway.

Also which you seem to be forgetting, extreme cases of where people are colourblind, they will most likely need to set their computer colours to compensate for their eyesight. Govvy (talk) 13:40, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Chérif Touré Mamam birth year
I've noticed some inconsistencies in sources with the year of birth for Chérif Touré Mamam (all list the day as 13 January), which should be used? German publication kicker says 1978, along with this 2006 Reuters report (which notes the discrepancy). This Nürnberg trading card also lists his birth year as 1978 (the order/spelling of his name is Cheriffe Maman-Touré in some German sources). However, currently the article has the year as 1981, which is also used by NFT and WorldFootball. FIFA list the year as 1983 here and here to complicate matters. Also, he apparently lied about his age while on trail in January 2005 with Norwegian club SK Brann (his passport had a birth year of 1985), which is mentioned in a few articles by Bergensavisen, and claimed that he never played for any clubs in Europe prior. Apparently he also gave his DOB as 13 December 1982 to his agent (who in an interview said "I'm not sure he even knows how old he is"). If he were born in 1981, this would make him the youngest ever player in German professional football (making him 16 years, 223 days old in his debut for 1. FC Nürnberg in the 2. Bundesliga), which seems unlikely given that only two other 16 year olds have appeared in pro leagues in Germany, and the top 40 youngest players of the three professional German leagues held European citizenship. S.A. Julio (talk) 00:04, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think 1978 looks most likely, don't you? GiantSnowman 09:48, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed, most of the online databases went with 1981 so I wanted to be sure before changing it. S.A. Julio (talk) 15:47, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Soccerway down
Hi everyone. Quick heads-up: the Soccerway website seems to be down right now (downforeveryoneorjustme.com). Hopefully, it's fixed soon. Robby.is.on (talk) 08:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Has been back up for a while now. :-) Robby.is.on (talk) 12:26, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Multiple spells in career statistics tables
Ron-Robert Zieler has just started his second spell at Hannover 96. In the "Career statistics" table in his article, there is now a row showing his appearance totals for the first spell and one showing his overall total for the club below his second spell. This looks kinda weird to me, since we now have two rows that are essentially doubling up info from the table. Can anyone think of a better way to display the info? Every way I've thought of has its own issues, so I would appreciate some ideas. – PeeJay 13:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't understand why it's doubling the info? One row shows the total at Hannover 96 for 2010-16, the second row shows the total at Hannover 96 for all time there. You might say the first row is redundant as you only want the total for all the time at Hannover, regardless of a "break" in the middle. --SuperJew (talk) 13:36, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Have one total for the first spell (when there's more than one season), one total for the second spell (when there's more than one season), but no need for a total total. GiantSnowman 13:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Separate totals for each spell (edit: only when there's more than one season), it's easy enough to add them when reading for a grand total. R96Skinner (talk) 13:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Separate totals for each spell, albeit not for the second until he has been there more than one season. To have a row showing 1 appearance and then immediately below it a "total" row showing 186 appearances is at best confusing and at worst looks like an outright error -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:56, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree that a total for each spell is sufficient. If a grand total is considered necessary it might be clearer using Total (first spell), Total (second spell) and Total (both spells). That total row with 186 appearances is jarring so should be removed or given a clearer row description. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:50, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Brown (footballer, born 1984)
Apparently players in the Scottish second tier are no longer notable following this AfD. A polite suggestion that more people join in the AFDs listed at WP:FOOTYDEL? GiantSnowman 07:56, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As an aside, which sources were in the article? He's a difficult one to search for because everyone's named Michael Brown, but I found, and . SportingFlyer  T · C  08:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This and Soccerbase only. GiantSnowman 08:30, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Audi Cup and the season articles,
Do they really pass current WP:GNG guidelines? Govvy (talk) 21:46, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Probably not. Much like the plethora of other articles we have on irrelevant pre-season tournaments... Jellyman (talk) 08:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Just for info: Featured_topics/Emirates_Cup.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Whilst friendlies aren't notable, the sheer fact these aren't noted as such should be enough. They will pass GNG and as above, we have a featured topic on this. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:05, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * k, it seems that maybe the whole set needs a lot more work on them! I was thinking the easy route of an AfD there! Govvy (talk) 09:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Flags for clubs involved in a player's transfer in seasons articles – superfluous or in-line with WP:MOSFLAG ?
Quick question, as usage in seasons articles doesn't appear to be hugely consistent. Some articles (such as for the 2018–19 Yeovil Town F.C. season) use flagicons for transferring clubs only when the club is not from the same country as the club the article is about. Other articles (such as for the 2018–19 Swansea City A.F.C. season) do not use flagicons for other clubs at all. Many articles (such as for the 2018–19 Southampton F.C. season) use flagicons for all clubs regardless of club nationality.

While the Football club seasons template uses the first form, the template seems pretty neglected and is generally ignored by editors. So, which style should be used? Domeditrix (talk) 12:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think using flags is a good shorthand to indicate an international transfer, as those have different regulations to transfers within a single association. Using flags for all clubs is overkill, especially when most transfers are within the association and would result in us repeating the same flag over and over, so I agree with the format in the Yeovil Town article. – PeeJay 13:29, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * None of the above are in line with WP:MOSFLAG, but it seems that anything goes with regards to flags on football wiki. Mattythewhite (talk) 13:58, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * What would be in line with WP:MOSFLAG? From what I've read it's a little open to interpretation. Domeditrix (talk) 17:51, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Hamilton Accies' goalkeepers
This implies there are three first-team goalkeepers at Hamilton Accies, as Ryan Fulton is not mentioned. Does anybody know what has happened to him? He's (at time of writing) still listed here. GiantSnowman 15:48, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This report in The Sun says he's still with Hamilton but has a long-term injury. Jellyman (talk) 15:58, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! GiantSnowman 18:43, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Spanish women's league
Hi, people. I've got a controversy with User:Banderas in the new Spanish women's second division and the third division. For not continuing this edit of wars (see history of edits if so), I ask you, people what to do.

The story is:


 * 1) The Federation (RFEF) agreed in 2018 to create a new league of two groups of 16 teams between the first and the second division (7 groups of 14 teams), initially called "Primera B" (First B, Argentine style).
 * 2) During the season, teams celebrate promotion to the Primera B and continue playing for promoting to the top tier.
 * 3) Few days ago, RFEF changes the name of Primera B to "Segunda División Pro" and the old Segunda División is named as its name until 2012 "Primera Nacional".

Our opinions are different as:


 * I consider the new Segunda División Pro as a completely new league and the "Primera Nacional" is the follow-up of the "Segunda División", only changing its name. Nobody talks about Primera Nacional as a new league, like the new Segunda Pro. I consider the name is only a re-order of the RFEF, as the third-tier has the same format of the "old" second-tier, only decreasing to level 3.
 * Banderas considers the new "Segunda División" as a follow-up of the old Segunda División despite completely changing its format, as it has the same name, and the third tier as a new league despite maintaining the format and no source considering it as a new league.

Which criteria is more logic? I hope I explained it well. Asturkian (talk) 16:18, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


 * There has been a Second Division (second-tier) since 2001. The name or the format has been changing, but it's not the important matter. The fact is that, with different names or formats, it's been from 2001 the Second Division. It's from where promotions to First Division have always taken place.

For the 2019-20 season there will be a new third-tier, called Primera Nacional (again, the name is not that important) between the second Division and the regional leagues (now 4th, 5th and 6th tiers, previously 3rd, 4th and 5th)--Banderas (talk) 16:40, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's the difference we have. There will be a new second-tier league demoting the current one to the third, like when Segunda División B in men's football was created: it demoted Tercera to the fourth tier. Asturkian (talk) 16:47, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree at all. The Second Division was the second-tier and remains the second-tier. Just changed sponsor and format. The First Division went through similar changes during its history: Liga Nacional - División de Honor - Superliga - Primera División.--Banderas (talk) 17:02, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with Askurkian. The Segunda Pro was inserted as a new level between the Primera and 'old' Segunda, both of which maintain their old structures, the only difference last season being an increase in promotions from 'old' Segunda to populate Segunda Pro. The situation has been made more complicated by the new level being called 'Segunda' while the old one has a new name 'Primera Nacional', but (as has also been highlighted above), that's just an aesthetic labelling thing, the original reshuffle plan had the new level as Primera B and the old one staying as Segunda; if you look at it with those names, it makes it more clear - in my opinion - that the level called Segunda Pro is brand new and should have a fresh article, while the level called Primera Nacional is a continuation, but now down a level, and should be renamed. Crowsus (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to ask other users as, and other editors of women's football. Asturkian (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


 * For me, Segunda División Pro is a smaller (then, a new format) and more professional version of the old Segunda División. Matches in the regular season will have less inequalities between teams than they had before. Meanwhile, Primera Nacional will retain the style of the old Segunda: more teams, more groups and notable inequalities between some teams during the regular season. In other words, a league more amateur than professional. In this new context, Primera División (first tier) aims to obtain recognition as a fully professional league.--MonFrontieres (talk) 20:23, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


 * As an aside from Men's Football, the Swiss Promotion League replaced the 1. Liga as the third tier league in 2012 and has its own article, but the 1. Liga continued as normal, it just was now in the fourth tier instead of the third tier. Other leagues which have had similar changes - 3. liga in Germany perhaps, where the Regionalliga moved from III to IV? - so I agree with Asturkian here - treat it like a new league, treat the old league as normal except now the tier is different. SportingFlyer  T · C  09:24, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Disruptive Editing on Junior Firpo
This article appears to have been the target of a bit of disruptive editing. I have protected the page but someone more knowledgeable on the subject should have a look and revert to the last good version. Thanks... -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:44, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Several football stats sites appear to have been globally blacklisted
I got a spam blacklist hit this morning trying to add a link to national-football-teams.com. According to the global blacklist, worldfootball.net and footballdatabase.eu are blocked as well {scroll down to the very bottom).

I wouldn't know how or where to query this, if someone with technical competence could please help? thanks, Struway2 (talk) 09:45, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The blacklist request was made with this edit by User:Snaevar on 7 July 2019 and this edit by user:Billinghurst provided notification that the sites were added to the blacklist. I assume that talk page would be the place to query the blacklisting, although this post might get a response. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 10:05, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * reverted their addition. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:12, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks both. Struway2 (talk) 13:19, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Stats graphs
I've been looking into what's possible with Template:Graph:Chart and thought it would be worth starting a discussion on how this could be useful for football articles. I added a Premier League placing chart at List of Liverpool F.C. seasons as a tester. Season data in particular is much easier to understand in a chart format than a numeric table. Any suggestions on how best to incorporate this feature into the existing article base? It appears that the subject area makes close to zero usage of the MediaWiki graph feature. SFB 22:04, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * For what I know, I’ve only seen it being used in national team articles, such as Croatia national football team, regarding the FIFA ranking. It’s worth noting that it’s important to flip the values on the y-axis, as is done on the Croatia article, so that “increasing” means to tend towards 1. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 22:15, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this! I was looking for an inverted scale feature so it's good to see it is already available. I've noted it in the documentation now. SFB 18:36, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Needing help with politically motivated editor
An editor is an user who for some reason is devoted to delete all information regarding the Republika Srpska official football team. He is doing mass deletions of content including categorization as well. All without any discussion or much less consensus. I will please ask some assistance in trying to keep the sourced content in the articles he is deleting. FkpCascais (talk) 21:57, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

To explain myself better, here is an exemple, basically, an excuse to remove a bunch of sourced information related to an issue he dislikes it. The Bosnian FA is basically formed of two sub-FA´s, one of them the R. Srpska one, which organises the First League of the Republika Srpska (one of the two second leagues of Bosnia) and also has an official team that ocassionally participates in non-FIFA tournaments. The way this user is trying to erase all information about that team is untolerable and very offensive towards who is part of the R. Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina. If you see his editing record, he has been removing the data about caps, categories, including content with sources, everything relating to R. Srpska team.

About the "Bosnian Serb" description at lede, it was discussed ages ago that most footballers that are from R. Srpska (49% of Bosnia) usually possess both Bosnian and Serbian passports and play as domestic at both leagues, so the description "Bosnian Serb" has been an efective way to avoid having to choose one unecessarilly. If a player played for a national team, the national team definitelly decides it, but if not, "Bosnian Serbs" has been working quite well. FkpCascais (talk) 22:16, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

What is not OK is that an editor decides to remove all references to R. Srpska team, their games, their players, remove the categories, and remove entire pieces of sourced content often including much more than just what he is objecting to. FkpCascais (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2019 (UTC)


 * So much panics, reporting, insinuations and accusations over few articles failing all-over the place regarding Wikipedia Guidelines - completely. Speaking of political, ethno-national motivations, and such. When we are at it, I would like to know on what WP grounds User:FkpCascais defends indefensible: creation and maintenance of non-existing Republika Srpska national football team(s), and several affiliated articles/pages on youth teams, at least three individual players, and several categories. Apart from failing on WP:NOTA, WP:NFOOTY, WP:SPORTBASIC and especially WP:FOOTYN, entire set-up of articles-categories around Republika Srpska national football team is based on an idea that this "national team" exists, only there are no references to confirm such idea, and if there is few, these are mostly unreliable and/or self-published. Meanwhile, articles on affiliated players failed on WikiProject Football/Players MOS, giving its readers some WP:UNDUE information based on pushing ethnic adherence of a player(s), regardless to WP:OPENPARA; WP:Lead; MOS:BLPLEAD and WikiProject Football/Players, and based on aforementioned Republika Srpska national football team(s) articles. It should be noted some clever notability masking (WP:MASK) by moving articles Republika Srpska national football team to Republika Srpska "official" football team (whatever that is supposed to mean).-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  22:56, 31 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I will repeat. Bosnia and Herzegovina is formed by two political entities: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska. Fed. of BiH controls roughtly 51% while Rep. of Srpska 49% of territory. Almost everything in the country is formed by the cooperation of this two entities. So is football. Football Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the main governing body that organises Bosnian official national teams at all levels, and the national top-league, the Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian FA is formed by the cooperation of Football Association of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Football Association of Republika Srpska. This two are the ones which efectivelly organise football in the country because besides when they join to form the cometees to organise and take care of events about the national team, and the top-league, it is each one of this that organises football each one in its own half of the country. From second national level, to municipal.


 * However, there are political forces which are trying to politicize this question. Specially regarding Republika Srpska. Bosnian War ended in 1995 with the signing of the Dayton Agreement. It was clear no one was going to leave fully happy or fully sad. Dayton concluded a Bosnia formed by two entities each with its own designated powers. The problem is that ever since, there has been an effort on behalve of some political forces to remove as much powers to Rep. Srpska as possible. Bosnian side is doing all possible to centralize as much as they can, while Serbian side has tried to keep the authonomy it was given. The editor Santasa proposed for deletion several categories related to R. Srpska team, removed categories from articles, and removed information about R. Srpska team from the articles. Then he acts as if he doesn´t know we have many non-FIFA teams articles, most of which have much less structural organisation behind than Rep. Srpska has, tries to claim lack of notability as if Rep. Srpska was a national team, something certainly it is not claimed anywhere, and, along other stuff I must be forgetting, he deletes bunches of info from articles, often including issues such as being nominated as coach of some team, only because it comes in the same source where the info regarding the R. Srpska team also came from. He counts on your lack of information regarding the reliability of media from that region, to suggest you perfectly reliable and well known such as Glas Srpske or sportsport.ba.


 * Well, he just goes on edit-warring... so sad. FkpCascais (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

There's a lot to go through here, but can I ask some questions of each of you, since I'm not familiar with either the languages or internal politics of Bosnia? -Gopherbashi (talk) 00:06, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What is the concern regarding the reliability of the links presented?
 * What is the current status of this official/national/representative team?
 * Is it still an active entity? The page in question lists no matches since 2001.
 * If not, would it have met notability guidelines at the time? (see WP:NTEMP)
 * If yes, I would note that other subnational/autonomous areas have similar articles (see: Non-FIFA international football). I will note that the article for the Catalonia national football team is very extensive despite playing only one match in the last three years.  It would seem consistent with current practice for this team to have an article provided that there are sufficient quality sources to establish notability.
 * Please note the (extensive) discussion regarding what to call the Catalonia team here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 118. Nation is not necessarily the same as a sovereign state, though my personal preference would be to use the word "representative" (or simply Republika Srpska football team").
 * What is the basis for notability regarding the deleted players in question? This would not include matches played with the Srpska football team (it has not contested any FIFA/competitive international matches as per WP:NFOOTY) or with the First League of Srpska (as it is not considered a fully-professional league as per WP:NFOOTY).  Players would otherwise have to meet WP:GNG (keeping in mind WP:ROUTINE).


 * Well, the issue is really much more simple than we made it look like. The thing is, Republika Srpska official football team is just one more in the bunch of teams at Category:European national and official selection-teams not affiliated to FIFA. We have the articles for those teams and when some coach is nominated or sacked from one of them, we add that info tohis article, and same with players, we add the info regarding playing for this teams to the articles of players involved.


 * In this case the problem is that the country Bosnia and Herzegovina (which is ethnically complex) is formed by this two entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (called "Federation" because gathers the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat territories), and Republika Srpska (that gathers the Bosnian Serb territories). Sort like Belgium with Flandres and Wallonia. So, the country functions allways by agrrement of the two entities, the central governament is formed by members of both entities, and so is most of everything else.


 * In football, when Yugoslavia broke-up in 1992, a total mess begun, and when Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence a 3 side war started between Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats. Meantime, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats declared independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, so by 1994 when things were starting to calm down, we had 3 Football Associations within Bosnia and Herzegovina, each with its own league and "national team". In 1995 Dayton Agreement was reached and the 3 sides signed peace and end of the war. It was established that Bosnia and Herzegovina would be formed by two entities, Croatian and Bosniak federations would merge and forme one, while the Football Association of Republika Srpska will be the other one. Since the territory was divided 51-49%, the two federations would be balanced. Each organised its football system in its half of the territory, and the best teams of the top leagues of each one will form one unified Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina (see Bosnia and Herzegovina football league system). So, for what matters internationally, it is the Premier League that provides the national champion and the participants in the European UEFA competitions. About the national team, both need to work together to try to join the best players from both entities and form the strongest team as possible.


 * Now, knowing all this, we know that the Football Association of Republika Srpska is responsable for organising and menaging its half, the one at the territory of Republika Srpska. Besides this, FA of RS also promotes youth camps, gathers the most talented players of all ages from its territory and makes friendly tournaments, often internationally. At senior level, there has been a coach and technical stuff appointed out, but for political reasons the FA has preffered to postpone playing any games for now, although every year there are roumors and many people would like to see the FA more active at its senior level. Rep. Srpska teams have been very active at youth level, but playing a friendly game, lets immagine, against Serbia, Russia, or any country, would be immediatelly criticized by Bosnian central governament as promotion for independence. Bosniaks and Croats oppose this and would like to see R. Srpska to be extinct completelly. So, here is the problem. We have a well organised and structurased Football Association which collaborating with another forms the main national football association of Bosnia and herzegovina, which however sees strong obstruction to play friendly games or participate in non-FIFA tournaments as many other similar regional teams do.


 * This situation has been like this for about 2 decades, and we don´t know what will happened next. Even Bosnia itself as a state is instable, and may well continue existing like this for 100 years more, may well be split in the future, or may see R. Srpska exctinct. Whatever happends, it is not up to us to judge or guess. We have to be objective and neutral. What we have now is a well structured Football Association of Republika Srpska making, along its counterpart, function the Bosnian FA perfectly well. The Bosnian Premier League has slightly less teams from R. Srpska, but FK Radnik Bijeljina for instance this season done OK in UEFA Europa League qualifiers. The youth teams of Republika Srpska provide its best players to the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So, in my view, the article about Republika Srpska official football team is one of the strongest non-FIFA teams, it should stay and be dealt just as all other similar articles such as the ones of Spanish provinces for exemple, and whenever there is some important information about it to be included in any article, with proper sourcing, it should be. Nomination of new coach, players calls-up, games when they happened, etc. Also, it should contain the categories and all other Wikipedia tools these teams have.


 * To make the article further more important, in the early 1990s when Yugoslavia broke-up, Republika Srpska declared independence and the games it played back then were games of "national team" character. Later, R. Srpska didn´t became independent, became an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina with its rights and authonomy defined, so all this makes the article about the team perfectly valid. Their first game was in 1992 in middle of war, in an era before internet, so sources are scarse, that´s why is a bit silly the accusation of "obscure sources being used". Until recently, it was hard time to find the exact line-ups and substitutions to the first games played. I did some part of the work digging in archives of old newspappers.


 * Anyway, that user has been removing information from the articles about the RS team, challenging its relevance, and trying to erase as much as possible Republika Srpska team mentioning from everywhere. Compared to the other teams from the Category:European national and official selection-teams not affiliated to FIFA, does that seem correct? Thank you for your attention and help. FkpCascais (talk) 03:04, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Q/A 1 - What is the concern regarding the reliability of the links presented? ( I'm guessing you mean reliability of the references)
 * - There are no reliable and neutral references, see this discussion and latest revision: Q/A 1 find here


 * Q/A 2, Q/A 3 - What is the current status of this official/national/representative team? / Is it still an active entity?
 * - It has no status, never had, except in rhetorical and political discourse and on paper, like in media and political altercations, "team" never played a single game, not even exhibition game ! Local-regional association User:FkpCascais mentioning has no information on any team of that nature. As User:GiantSnowman commented in discussion here.


 * Q/A 4 - If not, would it have met notability guidelines at the time?
 * - No (see above Q/A 2, Q/A 3)


 * Note: Catalonia can't be compared with this case, they have some noticeable history and significant activity, while this team has non.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  09:02, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment according to the article, the "national" team did play a number of non-recognised international matches in the 90s and early 2000s, and the administration plays an important part in the Bosnian football structure (a very unique role, I might add.) I favour removing "Bosian Serb" from the lede of articles, nothing wrong with mentioning it later on, but if a player appeared for this team and it's notable, it should be properly referenced and mentioned in the article. I would also like to remind everyone I believe the Balkans are under administrative sanctions. SportingFlyer  T · C  09:28, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - According to the article and what sources? And who disputes role of the regional association?-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  09:35, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - Also I would like to further comment on these walls of texts, where User elaborate on his opinions - I don't care about Bosnia "complex" situation, unlike User:FkpCascais I am not obsessed with ethnic divisions and that phenomenon doesn't interest me, however user can state his opinion in discussions but not in articles, unless I woke up in parallel universe and we can post anything we want as long as we post under the WikiProject Football. User also makes misleading claims and put forward half-truths, like claim that "in the early 1990s when Yugoslavia broke-up, Republika Srpska declared independence and the games it played back then were games of "national team" character"; well that's not true, and events are thoroughly described in series of articles on Bosnian War. Team never played a single game, and no reliable and neutral sources can verify they did.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  09:02, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Indeed SportingFlyer, this falls under Balkans-topics sanctions. The problem is when I notece in my watchlist an editor editing numerous articles promoting one same POV which is absolutelly not agreed and is very controversial. When confronted, a series of accusations and excuses start. His last excuse not to restore the information about RS games and coach nomination is because he considers Glas Srpske (Voice of Srpska) as unreliable because of some "findings" some "anonymous media online group" claims about them. Instead of relying on some website, he should go to the reliable sources noticeboard and get consensus regarding Glas Srpske, because from what I see, they are the 3rd most popular dayly with 31,26% (2015). I don´t doubt they have been envolved in scandals, it´s normal for media there, it doesn´t mean it is suddently unreliable now, specially for uncontroversial things such as sports.


 * But Santasa is pretending as if he thinks there are no other sources available. I am on hollyday, I am a bit lazzy to digg sources around, but here are some:
 * Selektor Borče Sredojević: Osnovana fudbalska reprezentacija Republike Srpske ("Manager Borce Sredojevic: the national team of R. Srpska was formed") at 24sata.info


 * And this one is very important because provides us with the copy of the list of players that were selected for the first ever game of the team, at time considered the national team of Republika Srpska. That list is important for the history of the team, and the article also talks about what happened later, who were the coaches, etc. It is one of the Bosnian sports websites, probably located in R. Srpska, and what Santasa objects is the neutral/positive tone the text describes the team. Well, I am sorry that not everyone in Bosnia shares his hateriot towards the R. Srpska team as he does, but that doesn not make the website unreliable.


 * We also have the COE consultative report on sport in Bosnia and Herzegovina which clearly continuously mentions how the entities work within sport and how Republika Srpska has its organisation and contribution.


 * We have the book The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia: Sport, Nationalism and the State by Richard Mills, talking about the formation of R. Srpska FA and its circunstances.


 * I could, and will, go, on and on. So for start, can we at least agree that user Santasa should not remove sourced information, should not remove sources claiming them unreliable if does not demonstrated they are so, agree that he does not remove categories he nominated for deletion before the veredict about them, and should not remove mentions about R. Srpska team from the texts and infoboxes of players, can we agre on this? FkpCascais (talk) 21:45, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * No, you couldn't go on and on, because if you could you would certainly try - you could hardly validate informations from this one sources you have spent days digging out, and which states as follows from Serbo-Croatian:
 * (by the way, at that very moment when someone claims that Borče Sredojević will be appointed RS national team manager, he is already employed by Bosnian FA as assistant manager on Bosnian national team for three years and will continue in that role for four more years reaching WC 2014 finals in Brazil !)
 * Article intro states: "The Republika Srpska football team will play its first official game in September in Novi Grad / Bosanski Novi, it is announced from the Republika Srpska Football Federation through Belgrade media.
 * "Interestingly, a match between the Republika Srpska and Serbia was recently agreed, but FIFA intervened and threatened to disqualify Serbia if it dared to play that match."
 * "Even though our team has not played any matches yet (editor note: it's August 2010), we have the coat of arms, the jerseys are in sale, and the Republika Srpska Fan Association has been established."; and note that these statements were made by Lazarević in 2010
 * "There is no longer any reason for us not to play matches. It is time for the RS national team to come to life  (editor note: again, it's August 2010) and get the place it belongs to and to start representing Republika Srpska football"


 * All we can see from all this text and 2 links is that they like to mention creation of the "national" team a lot, they talk about it all the time, they even blackmailed Bosnian FA with it in 2011 when UEFA suspended Bosnian FA for having three presidents, but nothing ever happened - nothing ever happened. As we can read in your first link in the article at 24sata.info, RS FA officials themselves in August 2010 refuted your claims that team existed since 1992 and played uncountable number of games.
 * So they made these claim that it's time for the team - and what exactly happened ? Any game reports in media, any results, did they beat somebody, did they lost a game or two - any activity since 2010 ?
 * Although nothing is validated by these links which user provided, except that someone told Serbian media and 24sata.info reported, that RS team has shorts and badges.
 * So, if it is needed at all, my argument about reliability and neutrality of Serbian media (reported by one Internet portal), in this highly politicized case, as you yourself explained on several different discussions threads, will be evaluated by the community
 * As well as Balkan's media fact-checking network based in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Skopje and Podgorica, consisting of several seriously endorsed organizations (EU Commission, State department, individual European govt), and their research available here online, briefing available on EU Office website in Bosnia here, will be evaluated by the community, not your cherry-picking and beating around the bush with these enormous misleading walls of text (what exactly book "The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia" and "COE consultative report on sport" say about existence and activities of "national" team from RS ?).-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  22:59, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The Palgrave International Handbook of Football and Politics page 292. Only this is enough to get your entire conspiracy theories out of window. Now please, can someone please endorse our rules and principles? FkpCascais (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Wow, you are persistent. And what they actually did as a team from 1992-1998 or 1992-2010, drew badges on rifles and took photos in shorts borrowed from FK Borac, what exactly ?
 * You gave 24sata.info linked interview with Branko Lazarević, who is introduced as RS FA's "dirctor of all national team categories" who said in August 2010 how they never played a game; and Slobodan Tešić another operative of RS FA who said also in August 2010 "It is time for the RS national team to come to life" - in 2010 - and in the book authors claim how with the creation of RS separate FA, league and national team were created too (although without footnotes!), as if we didn't knew that.
 * So, the question is, what this virtual team actually did ?
 * Where are all the games, results, reports in media?
 * Were they a real or virtual football team, political decor which served to make things more normal and legitimate for establishment of "independent" republic ? Exactly what authors emphasized in their book, a context which escapes you, by the way ?
 * Through entire duration of Bosnian war, ramshackle Bosnian national team played games around Europe, with all major Western media, sport or any other kind, reported on their every game - where are reports on games of RS team ?-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  00:38, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You are on "[hollyday]" and "a bit [lazzy]" to "[digg] sources around", but you are not on "holiday", nor "lazy" to spend a full weekend on posting gargantuan walls of text and going around to different noticeboards and other locations to try and forum shop and have someone endorse your preferred POV and "our rules and principles" (they are actually called guidelines and policies), and WP:canvassing for vote reconsideration at admin's TP.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  02:27, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * After posting two enormous walls of text supposedly explaining how politicized and controversial is this issue of Bosnian football, and how I touched into really contentious and controversial subject of football national teams with few of my edits, you abruptly changed your mind when reliability of Glas Srpske came to be at stake, suddenly this whole issue morphed into "uncontroversial things such as sports".
 * Your obsession with politics and political and ethno-nationalist divisions and allegiances, in walls upon walls of incoherent text, repeals other editors from taking part in this discussion, so I decide, albeit belatedly, not to respond anymore unless someone asks me something concrete and meaningful.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  03:26, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, your walls of text and insinuations bother me more. I have never had reason to question the motivations of FkpCascais in a decade of editing, if he has cause for concern then I am interested in what he has to say.
 * This is clearly a contentious subject, sourcing is evidently problematic at some level, but even the meagre 10 minute searching I have done raised two books regarding former Yugoslavia and Balkan football, which then gave me other versions of the name in question to search for which brought up other pages.
 * Does this validate either of your positions? No. But it does mean some reading is required by other editors in order to give an informed opinion (particularly if sources are not in English). Koncorde (talk) 08:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC)


 * As an aside, I'm not sure how to solve this conflict, but based on the sources provided, the information about the RS team should remain in the articles/not be deleted. I think there's confusion over the word "national" team, but this is clearly one of those non-FIFA-affiliated, not-really-a-national-team teams, and their role in history is interesting (especially Serbia being disqualified if they played RS - how can they be disqualified if the other team does not exist?) SportingFlyer  T · C  08:14, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What sources, and how those sources validate point(s) made in article ? And please, I am able to spot informal fallacy when I see one even from mile away, you are making false analogy, like "how can they (Serbia) be disqualified if the other team (RS team) does not exist?" - as if the threat of disqualification is somehow evidence of RS team existence; but is Serbia disqualified ? So, let us fact-check briefly: UEFA said if RS create a team for the game, and if they schedule the game inviting Serbia, and Serbia respond to the match invitation, and match is finally played, than and only than Serbia could get disqualified - they never created the team, game was never played, and Serbia wasn't disqualified. Am I in parallel universe here, does anyone show any regard for WP:V, WP:SOURCES, and WP:SYNTH on this project, or at least in this thread ? There is always the next step in dispute resolution, as this seem like we are just running in circles with only couple of editors involved ?-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  10:32, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion (some philosophers wouldn't agree, though), no matter how strange their bias and perception may seem. And since you are invoking FkpCascais 10 years of editing engagements as a sort of elite and as a merit for holding him to high esteem and great confidence, and my own as already suspicious although our paths never crossed before, would it be fair if you mentioned FkpCascais's six months long topic ban from the Balkans too, which was just lifted by Sandstein in June.- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  10:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No, my point is not that your editing is suspicious - but that your attitude is not making me want to actually help, and your response to Sporting Flyer only increases my reticence to actually engage with you. I would suggest you allow other editors to discuss without you jumping all over their necks. You specifically said "I decide, albeit belatedly, not to respond anymore unless someone asks me something concrete and meaningful" so please provide breathing room for this discussion to take place. Koncorde (talk) 13:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "They never created the team" - what does this mean? It's not difficult to find evidence of the Republika Srpska team playing against the Krajina team in 1992, even scholars have documented the role of football during this time. Why would you remove perfectly valid citations? SportingFlyer  T · C  21:01, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I thnk Santasa got his goal to confuse everyone and make this look like something really controversial and complicated. But, really, it isn´t. The issue is as simply as this: Republika Srpska official football team is just one more ammong the Category:European national and official selection-teams not affiliated to FIFA. Santasa seems to have some doubts both regarding Republika Srpska FA and its role within Bosnian football, and also doubts about the way such non-FIFA teams are dealt here on en.wikipedia. Instead of trying to get more information and open threads he could choosed to, he decided to act unilaterally and delete content and sources from articles, delete categories, and then nominate categories for deletion. He is also convinced the world still lives in the 1990s and that his "strugle" against Rep. Srpska is moral and should be militantly supported and the ones opposing punished for being "evil Serbs", or something... None of that is relevant here, first, we are en.Wikipedia and we must deal the subject of Bosnia in an objective and neutral way, without prejudice against no side, and second, this is about football. It is truth that politics and sports often mix, but even if that is the case, our job here is to write that down, and not delete it because of personal judgments.

So, can we agree Santasa was wrong in removing the info from coaches and players articles about their participation in Rep. Srpska games? Can we agree to add R. Srpska stats in infobox same way we do with other non-FIFA teams, in Italics? I never wanted nothing more than just keeping that info as it was, nothing else. Not only the stats of the games in the infobox, but also the usually one sentence refering a coach has been nominated for Rep. Srpska team. Its not a minor deal, it is actually a major recognition even for coaches appointed to work with youth levels. I believe Santasa failed to demonstrate a valid reason why that information should be removed and ignored, and his political rants failed even bigger. Rep. Srpska FA also gives annual awards for best player, best talent, those informations when properly sourced should be included, and editors unilaterally removing such info claiming it is irrelevant, it is disruptive tendentious editing. FkpCascais (talk) 17:53, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Focus, focus, leave those insinuations behind, I am getting tired with your concerns and insights in what I am supposedly thinking, what is my motive or goal, or what is my ideological or political stance, and my national background - you are in breach of both, conduct policies WP:IUC and behavior guidelines WP:EQ since the beginning few days ago.
 * Further, all this time in last couple of days you are WP:CANVASING through Campaigning and WP:FORUMSHOP, this is just one of the forums where you initiated these debates in seeking validation and approval.
 * I am so close to report on Conduct dispute resolution.
 * On what grounds you are seeking agreement ? When you find sources that can neutrally and reliably verify any claim you are thinking should be included in any article, then you will get even my own blessing for that.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  20:22, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * On grounds that you need to accept that Republika Srpska official football team is just one more ammong the Category:European national and official selection-teams not affiliated to FIFA and it is treated equally as the others when it comes to related articles such as games, coaches and players. You don´t get to eliminate information only because you don´t like that team, and consider it irrelevant as you said.
 * Second thing, you failed to demonstrate Glas Srpske and sportlive.ba are unreliable sources, specially for the case in question (a report on a football game). Your personal opinion doesn´t count. Shall we ask reliable sources noticeboard?
 * Third, you failed to gain any support despite your bombardment of posts, rather, editors confirmed my good reputation and indicated concerns about your conduct. Now that this happened here, you decided to go to try to get me blocked, or banned. Feel free. FkpCascais (talk) 20:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * My opinion doesn't count, but I guess your personal opinion not only does counts, it is also a some kind of law which I am obliged to respect ? Is that why you are ordering that I "need to accept" something you have strongest opinion about ?
 * You wrote two enormous texts above explaining how extremely controversial and highly political is this whole subject, now you created post trying to convince readers that it isn't, that it's very simple, while it's me who argue it's controversial - are you serious !?
 * I failed nothing about your source in Glas Srpske - actually I never initiated proper debate about it, otherwise I would include some research done on Balkan media, and you know which, because I already included those in another forum where you seek support and confirmation of your position.
 * I never disputed Sportsport.ba and this source was actually irrelevant because it has nothing on the subject in the first place, and you are making that claim for the 100th time.
 * Bombardment of posts ? Well, let's Conduct dispute resolution solve this between us - I am tired of your WP:ASPERSIONS. Let the knowledgeable, neutral and experianced users solve this.-- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  21:10, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Debate on "v" or "vs" for 1872 Scotland vs England football match
Honestly, this is just a little ridiculous. If you go to the category for International association football matches and look at all of the pages in the category and subcategories, you'll see that the majority of them are titled "TEAM1 v TEAM1 (20XX COMPETITION)" or "20XX TEAM1 v TEAM2 football match" (with 20XX standing for the year, TEAM1 standing for the home team, and TEAM2 standing for the away team), like for example, Argentina v England (1986 FIFA World Cup) or the 1876 Scotland v Wales football match. Both of those articles use the formats for their titles that I have mentioned. However, the only article that doesn't follow this unspoken rule or format is the 1872 Scotland vs England football match, or the first official international football match between any nation ever. Back in 2012, there was a discussion on Talk:Barbados 4–2 Grenada (1994 Caribbean Cup qualification), on how to name articles about football matches between national teams that didn't go by a common name or nickname (for example, Battle of Highbury).

Back in 2012, it was decided to move Scotland v England (1872) (and other articles with similar names) to 1872 Scotland vs England football match (or a title similar to that). However, if you check every other article listed on that discussion (except Barbados 4–2 Grenanda or Hungary 7–1 England, both of which are more known for their ridiculous scorelines and England 3–6 Hungary, which is more known as the "Match of the Century"), you'll see that they were moved to "20XX TEAM1 v TEAM2 football match", or in other words, the "vs" in the title was changed to a "v". From my research, I couldn't find a discussion about why they were moved again, but it kind of makes of sense to me, since it was a football match and not a war or battle, but I digress.

When I noticed this not-so-glaring issue in the title of 1872 Scotland vs England football match, I moved the article to 1872 Scotland v England football match expecting no harsh criticism since I did it in good faith. However, just about an hour after moving the page, I received a message from User:Number 57 on my talk page, saying that I should hold a discussion about it on this project page before I move the page, so that is exactly what I did. This may seem like a slight nitpick to some, but it is really bothering me, and the title messes with the order of how articles like these are named and searched for.

If you couldn't tell, I want the page to be moved to 1872 Scotland v England football match, since the vast majority of articles about historical association football matches use the same naming conventions when we decided on their titles. I want to know what you guys think and help decide if we should move it again or not. KingSkyLord (talk) 18:58, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the choice should be between "v." and "vs". I think either are acceptable, but the naked "v" is not. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 19:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with the proposal to rename the article from "vs" to "v", as it matches the default naming style for other matches found at both Template:Scotland national football team matches and Template:England national football team matches (and generally for other international matches where no other name exists). Adding periods for abbreviation would affect for more than just this match and should be part of a larger discussion if desired. -Gopherbashi (talk) 12:38, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would use "v" because of common usage although, paradoxically, "v." is correct grammar. If using "vs", that must not have a full stop at all because it is bad grammar. You use a full stop with an abbreviation if the last letter of the abbreviation is not the last letter of the full word – classic example is "etc." so "v." and "vs" are both grammatically correct. No Great Shaker (talk) 22:36, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Stub or start?
Quick poll... I'm doing a few article assessments for competition articles. Given it's perilously close to WP:NOTSTATS but also not really delete-able (notable season), would you classify 2015–16 A.C. ChievoVerona season as a stub article or a start article? SportingFlyer  T · C  21:53, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * A stub. I tend to class articles based on the amount of prose, and if it's less than half a page of that, it's a stub for me. Number   5  7  22:23, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it's a stub that should be deleted, notable or not, because it's statistics only. No Great Shaker (talk) 22:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks both, will go specifically on prose for stub classification going forward. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:18, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * More like start. I'm thinking of like 2-3 sentence articles as a stub. SUre its lots of tables, but it's start. :-) -Koppapa (talk) 05:08, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Edusport Academy
The senior team run by Edusport Academy has been rebranded as Caledonian Braves F.C. ("Est. 2019" on the new badge). Given that our article covers both the team and the actual academy, should it be renamed on the basis that the senior team is the primary reason for notability? Keep it at Edusport as this is the umbrella organisation? Or even split into two articles? I would say the rename option, but interested to hear other views as it's an unusual situation. Jellyman (talk) 08:54, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would move the article based on your rationale of the senior team being the primary reason for notability. Number   5  7  09:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * May I know what qualifies the article as notable? <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 09:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The team competes in the Lowland Football League, a league whose teams are considered notable -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah sorry, I just assumed that the 5th division in Scottish football didn’t compete in the domestic cup. Thanks. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 10:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The academy is still known as Edusport, isn't it? So the academy should be a section within an article about the senior football team titled Caledonian Braves F.C. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 09:06, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

In line with the opinions given above, I've gone ahead and moved the page to Caledonian Braves F.C.. Jellyman (talk) 07:05, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Positions by Round spam
Special:Contributions/78.3.144.9 is currently spamming every league season article he can find with unsourced, and unpopulated "Position by Round" sections. I'm pretty sure we decided these were not required WP:SYNTH in violation of WP:NOTSTATS. If I'm correct in this assumption, can they be mass-reverted please? Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 20:56, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Mandatory Palestine H2H record
How should Mandatory Palestine's head-to-head record be treated? Should it be merged into Palestine's H2H record (in the same way Macedonia and Northern Macedonia's H2H records are the same), or should it remain on its own? I have opted for the second in the case of Lebanon's H2H table. What are your opinions? <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 14:21, 6 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Having a look at some of the players (playing for clubs which later become part of Israel's leagues), it would seem to me that in a case of a merge it would be more appropriate to merge into Israel's record. --SuperJew (talk) 15:24, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course it should be merged. Where was the home of the Palestine Mandatory? It was in Palestine itself represented by the current national team. Why do we have to separate their history? How can Lebanon meet Israel when they are bitter enemies? Second, the PFA was founded by Arabs, British, and Jews alike.--Sakiv (talk) 15:54, 6 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Mandatory Palestine should be listed separatelly in my opinion. If any merge would make sense, it would be with Israel, certainly not nowadays Palestine, because Mandatory Palestine was the basis that later became Israel national team. FkpCascais (talk) 16:47, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You're wrong, the Palestinian Football Federation mentions itself as the successor to the federation founded in 1928 and is proud of it. Furthermore, almost all sites mention that Palestine participated in the 1934 and 1938 World Cup qualifiers., , , — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sakiv (talk • contribs) 16:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * the debate above is a good reason for it just being kept separate from both the modern Israeli and Palestinian federations. It has links to both but neither is its direct successor. Crowsus (talk) 17:02, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I've just looked at FIFA's official fixture lists for both Palestine and Israel: only Palestine has the Mandatory Palestine matches listed. Israel's first official match, for FIFA, seems to be against Cyprus in 1949. On this basis I will merge the Mandatory Palestine match with the H2H record against Palestine. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 17:05, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It should definitely not be merged with Palestine's record. The Israel national team is the successor to the Mandatory Palestine/Eretz Israel team (hence its FIFA affiliation year of 1929 and Palestine's of 1998). See a previous discussion here, which notes a probable database error in the fixture lists you are using. Number   5  7  21:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

General ref format query
Just in general, would a link rot bot be able to work with this or does it really have to use the full cite template? It's a lot less fiddly to use the first one, but if it creates problems down the line I'll go back to the second. Thanks. Crowsus (talk) 11:30, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't matter if you include the full detail of the article - dates, titles, etc. Hack (talk) 04:56, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed. So long as there's enough for it to work with, the format doesn't matter. Accessdates help for getting a copy of the page as it was when accessed. As to formats in general, if an article is consistent in its use of a particular citation format e.g. cite-web or hand-coded or Harvard referencing, we're supposed to use that format, even when it isn't our favourite: see WP:CITEVAR. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:12, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

The crisis at Bury
I have supported Bury F.C., my home town team, since the 1960s and it looks after today's EFL announcement that the end is nigh. I have a certain amount of inside information and, frankly, we are in such an appalling mess that I think expulsion is inevitable. On this site, it is necessary to be objective and I'm wondering if there is an article anywhere about clubs that have been in a similar situation. For example, the likes of Rangers, Darlington, Halifax and others who were forced into lower leagues before being resurrected and who managed to carry on and even recover from the experience. Ironically, our best player last season was Jordan Rossiter, on loan from the new Rangers.

Whatever may happen to the current Bury Football Club, Gigg Lane and its facilities remain excellent for lower league purposes, let alone the Northern Premier League or the North West Counties League, or whatever is below that, so I'm sure a Bury club will arise again and continue. It would be good if there is an article about the plight of clubs forced to fold so I can add the Bury experience to it. Does anyone know of one? Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 20:49, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Italy is full of such clubs. Bari, Palermo and Parma are just a few examples. All “phoenix clubs” in Italy restart in Serie D, the highest non-professional division. I’m not sure what the English equivalent is. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 20:55, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Phoenix club (sports) ? TheBigJagielka (talk) 21:45, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know why Darlington 1883 were allowed to become Darlington F.C. but most others have to have separate articles. Port Vale F.C. folded in 1907 and then Cobridge Church F.C. changed their name to Port Vale, continuing the name. Seems a disgrace to let a two-time FA Cup winning club of 134 years go to the wall, but that's football.--EchetusXe 22:49, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Phoenix club (sports) looks like what I had in mind. Fingers crossed I don't need it. Thanks very much. No Great Shaker (talk) 10:59, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Kits in the info boxes
I thought we were not suppose to have the kit makers logos on the shirt etc, I've just noticed on Tottenham Hotspur F.C. the Nike logo it was on there and a club like Juventus F.C.? Not sure what that is... Govvy (talk) 20:03, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sponsors is a definite no-no, unsure about manufacturer logos, depends on copyright etc. GiantSnowman 12:27, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Squad numbers being added to the Eastbourne Borough club article, player articles and squad template
has been adding squad numbers to the Eastbourne Borough club article, player articles and squad template. As most of us are aware, players at National League South level are not assigned squad numbers. However, I have been reverted on one specific player article in my watchlist and I am not prepared to engage in an edit war over this issue. They are also adding unsourced rows to career stats tables and ambiguous timestamps in infoboxes. Please can someone intervene? Thank you, LTFC 95 (talk) 14:04, 7 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi LTFC 95, the Eastbourne Borough players for this season have been assigned numbers, hence why in their first 2 games their starting 11 hasn't composed of the traditional numbers 1 to 11, but instead included numbers such as 15, 18 and 20. This shows that these numbers have been allocated to those players with numbers such as 7 and 11 being on the bench. I have also added a source to the career stats table and added less ambiguous timestamps the infoboxes. Amsmith536 (talk) 14:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The players section on the club article is entirely unsourced. Where is the source confirming the club's squad numbers for the season? LTFC 95 (talk) 17:55, 7 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I can't find a squad list with assigned numbers anywhere, including the club's official website. SportingFlyer  T · C  02:35, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The squad numbers aren't listed on the club's website but if you are basing it on that then half of the 1st team squad isn't listed on the website, this is because the website is and always has been poor. Amsmith536 (talk) 11:39, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You still have not provided a source for the numbers. Kante4 (talk) 13:33, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

If the league doesn't require squad numbers, then they are entirely unofficial and there would be nothing to stop the team changing them at any point of the season. I don't think they warrant inclusion even if they can be sourced. Jellyman (talk) 20:54, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * This section can be removed now because I have removed the squad numbers from these places. I was just trying to provide information to the pages that I think is relevant. Even though the numbers haven't been published anywhere I think it is fairly obvious that they are squad numbers with the same players wearing the same numbers regardless of whether they the in the starting eleven or on the bench. However I have changed it back as I really don't think it is worth making a fuss over it if other people don't think it is relevant. Amsmith536 (talk) 22:20, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * It is not about relevant or not but you (again) provided no source from where you got the numbers from. Kante4 (talk) 22:41, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The point is Wikipedia relies on published reliable sources rather than original research. An issue still remains, which is the players section is unsourced. If reliable sources cannot verify each player in the Eastbourne Borough squad, then the section shouldn't exist within the article. The same goes for the squad template. This isn't about making a fuss, we are following Wikipedia policy. LTFC 95 (talk) 23:00, 8 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't think you understood what I meant, I wasn't saying that you were the ones making a fuss but I admit that was probably the wrong word to use. I do understand that everything has to have a reliable source so that is why I removed the squad numbers from the places you have questioned them being. I have also now sourced the players in the squad so now there should be no more issues. Amsmith536 (talk) 14:45, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Citing to an image?
I just noticed on Portsmouth F.C. one of the citation links goes straight to an image, currently cite 127, can you do that? Govvy (talk) 12:25, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If you mean This (which is now ref 128 for me) then I would say no. Going to pinimg.com redirects to pintrest.com, so someone has uploaded it there. A google image search finds it on pintrest and heraldry-wiki.com, all of which would count as WP:UGC as there is no way of verifying that the image is what it claims to be. Spike &#39;em (talk) 13:51, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You kinda said what I was thinking, I've never seen a cite like that before, so was utterly confused if you can do that or not. Govvy (talk) 13:59, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking again, I see that there are at least 3 images used as refs in that section, none of which I think are directly usable. Even if an image is on a recognisable site, without a clear statement of what the photo is it will lack context. Spike &#39;em (talk) 14:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The reference takes you to image of the "embroidered badge of the city of Portsmouth Coat of Arms" rather than providing a reliable source for the statement that the "circular rope crest design was replaced in 1989 by an embroidered badge of the city of Portsmouth Coat of Arms". It does nothing to verify the claim. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:09, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The historical kits reference (#127) seems to show that the coat of arms was used for four years between 1993 and 1997, not from 1989 to 1993 as the article text states. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:15, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Notability of article?
Not sure if Legacy Early College Field meets notability guidelines. What is the consensus on this one? N. Jain (talk to me) 00:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Per the notability guidelines on stadiums, the stadium has to “currently host or has hosted a Professional sports team”. As Greenville Triumph SC play in the USL League One, a fully professional league, the club itself is deemed professional. In short, the stadium meets the notability guidelines. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 00:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Never seen that essay until now but WP:NBUILD should control, so if it fails WP:GNG after a before search, I would send it to AfD. SportingFlyer  T · C  08:48, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Games in Reserves/U21/U23
The Reserves/U21/U23-teams are not youth teams. It's senior football. So you have to put them into Senior career. For example Mason_Greenwood, Callum Hudson-Odoi or Wayne Rooney (as you can see it's not a youth team). This games are Senior club appearances, so there is no reason to hide them or to put them into the youth career. --HSV1887 (talk) 11:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But they're not the first team, which is the point. Things work a little differently in Germany, I know, where your 'B' teams compete in the actual league system with the first teams of smaller clubs, but that's not the case in England. – PeeJay 11:02, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree with PeeJay - in England the reserve stats are not included, as they do not compete in the same system as the senior teams. GiantSnowman 11:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree as well. And, for the record, did Wayne Rooney really play for Man U under-21s when he was 30 years old, as the German article seems to claim? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. A few players over 23 are allowed per game, I guess. It's the same in Germany. The U21/23 are playing in the "regular" league system, but you can use a few players, which are older than 23. The box does not say, that the team has to play in the regular league system. It just says domestic league. The Premier League 2 is a domestic league. I think you are hiding important information like this. Mason Mount was never a first team member before 2019. This box represents his carrer much better. I also think, that the Premier League 2 got a big status in the last few years and the appearances in this league are very relevant for a carrer. Without this apps there seems to be nothing in the first years of player in senior football.--HSV1887 (talk) 11:44, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems like there is nothing in the first few years because there is nothing in the first few years. Premier League 2 is entirely separate from the rest of the English football pyramid. You can't get promoted from PL2 to the proper Premier League. The situation simply isn't the same as in Germany, so I would recommend you stop trying to equate them. – PeeJay 12:03, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not equate them and I know about this fact, but the Infobox football biography does not say, that the league has to be part of the league pyramid. This games are part of the senior career and part of the biography. The Infobox just says  Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league . No first team or part of league pyramide. The highest youth teams are the U18's or the U19's in UEFA Youth League. So you can not put them into youth carrer.--HSV1887 (talk) 12:08, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But Reserve/U23/U21 games are not considered "senior" football. That's the point. A player has not played senior football if he hasn't played for the first team. – PeeJay 12:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The heading of that section of the infobox is "Senior career". A club's first team is its senior team, and a senior career is when a player is playing in a league in which senior teams, i.e. club first teams, play. That's why B teams in much of Europe are displayed in the infobox while English B teams (reserve teams, development squad, U21/U23 teams) are not. Not because they are senior teams but because they play in leagues in which senior teams play; English B teams don't play in leagues in which senior teams play. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:48, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But is it bad to have more information in die box?--HSV1887 (talk) 15:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Possibly: the infobox is meant to be a summary of the main information in the rest of the article. If there is little or no mention of these games in the article, then there is no need for them to be in the infobox. Spike &#39;em (talk) 16:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Rooney was probably recovering from injury and needed a game. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 11:56, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Worth chucking in here that if the decision were taken to include reserve team stats in infoboxes on en.WP (I don't for a moment think it will be, but if it were to be......) there is literally no chance of finding this information for any player who played more than about five years ago -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:53, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * My advice would just be that, if the player played in the reserve team for a significant period of time (or they achieved something with that team), mention it in the biographical body of the text. Domeditrix (talk) 13:51, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's different than in Germany. Should not be included in the box. Kante4 (talk) 14:02, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

IP editor
Hi all. Could fellow editors help keep an eye on User:93.143.65.77's future edits. They believe Bhutanese football is professional, editing numerous Bhutan football club articles to claim professionalism which is becoming disruptive, imo. Snowflake91 and I have attempted to discuss with them, but they seem pretty ignorant to any help. Unsure if they've done enough for a block. Also: Odd convo between those two here, seems to be a few threats being made; though hard to tell given the language barrier. R96Skinner (talk) 00:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * hi yes check social media of bhutan football federation to see grassroots, fifa funding, coaching education...one link dead, other outdated with all answers yes, to become pro standard league. also if say official fb is unreliable (as flake deleted players, kits etc, his edits for bhutan premier league clubs, thimphu city, transport united, reverting logo sizes etc) is racism, how u accept top clubs social media but not bhutanese...
 * also check other euro and asian leagues, all of them and 90% listed should be updated if checked clubs social media. leaving old sources is biggest possible vandalism! bhutan and many mentioned are pro now (2017 strictly here), should be listed opposite few years ago if so, without someones artificial nod. up to u if this page remains total disgrace, just if few guys know wiki skills better than football lovers the topic.
 * yes flake said to report out of wiki, too funny...as ignored clubs fb sources like i said, just bcos has username and few guys agreed, cant abuse knowledge, sources and stuff accepted by any normal person. on his behalf, i'll find him dont worry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.143.65.77 (talk) 01:23, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I definitely think Bhutan is not professional based on the rankings shown on the article. Same with other cases around them. Iggy (Swan) 14:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Ashley Barnes nationality again.
It wasn't clear in the conversation in Feb what flag icon to use, I noticed he still has Austria flag on, yet a number of users said he should be English. Did we have any clarification? Govvy (talk) 22:02, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would keep the Austrian flag, as it is what Burnley uses in their official website. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 22:17, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The Talk:Burnley F.C. page said that he was not eligible of Austria due to rejection as seen by the article. From what I've seen, he played once in a four nation friendly tournament for the Austrians at under 20 and has made none Austrian appearances since then. One source I've found was that he does not have the country's passport and a legal examination of the Ministry of Interior rules the striker can't be Austrian in his case. Although he has an Austrian grandparent, he would require citizenship which has been ruled out.
 * Other users who have been watching the club article have noticed this has been frequently changed over the months since the news was released earlier this year. Also friendly matches are usually not as competitive as league/cup matches. Whether to keep the flag on Austria depends on if Burnley's club web page have realised he does not have citizenship. Iggy (Swan) 22:26, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If that's the case then the flag icon should default to country of birth shouldn't it? Govvy (talk) 22:31, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, that makes him eligible to play for England! heh. Govvy (talk) 22:34, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Per GS, myself, and a few others at the time - the answer is he is English. He neither holds Austrian citizenship, nor is he eligible to play for Austria. His representative nationality therefore reverts back to English, unless he finds an Irish granny somewhere. The Burnley website isn't as a Primary Source would be useful for basic stats, but competitive nationality is another thing (and per Dan Potts case) notoriously unreliable with his US nationality present for some time afterwards.
 * Also he was always eligible for England until he played his first competitive game, which is why changing people's actual nationalities is retarded, but is the norm in WP:FOOT. Koncorde (talk) 22:37, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Well I agree with you, I think it should be changed back to the St. George flag. Govvy (talk) 22:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * English. Koncorde's arguments are very persuasive: Barnes neither holds an Austrian passport nor is eligible to play for Austria. That he was able to play a friendly for the Austrian side has been acknowledged as an error. Domeditrix (talk) 08:50, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Do we need a consensus for this? Govvy (talk) 10:45, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Back to the Burnley page my friends, they haven't shown the Austrian appearance or how he qualifies to play for them when his career began. The answer to this should be displayed as the following markup below.


 * I think we've all agreed that the English flag should be the correct answer. If Jeremy Clarkson asks this question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the England option should be right based on citizenship reasons. Iggy (Swan) 12:08, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * - thanks for fixing that markup, I've just noticed that something was wrong when I checked back on the last revision that I did to this page. Iggy (Swan) 14:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No problem! <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 15:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Alex Scott (footballer, born 1984)
On 6 August 2019, someone changed the nationality to "British" then a few days later, it went back to English - today it then returned back to British. What I think about this is that British is not a nationality as that consists of Wales, England and Scotland; Alex has not played with Wales or Scotland and British should not be in the opening sentence. Iggy (Swan) 14:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * British is a nationality in legal/passport terms. There's no such thing as "English nationality" in that sense, because England is part of the UK.  The concept of nationality becomes confusing, though, in football, because for strange historical reasons England, Scotland and Wales have separate "national" teams.  Thus a footballer can have separate "sporting nationality" and "legal nationality".  Alex Scott's passport will list her nationality as British -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:58, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, Alex Scott has represented Great Britain at the Olympics. --SuperJew (talk) 15:49, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * She's described as 'English footballer' everywhere, so that's what we say. GiantSnowman 15:58, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But wait, isn't she a British association football commentator and a former English football player who represented Great Britain? Lets hope she doesn't have origins in Ireland and Jamaica or it will get really confusing... Koncorde (talk) 16:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To be specific, we should say English. It is a confusing system (but that's the UK in general), and this isn't an issue that is contained just in football (pretty much any sport, really.) Her sporting nationality (which is what is important in the article) is English. That's how it works on literally every other article about a subject from Great Britain. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:13, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Soccerbase
I'm trying to add a link to Layton Ndukwu's Soccerbase page but I cannot get it to work properly, can someone tell me how I fix this please?


 * Jimmy Skitz's Answer Machine 04:37, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I fixed that page and replied you on your talkpage. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:58, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Soccerbase is getting less reliable so you might want to double check stats with another site like soccerway.com Govvy (talk) 09:12, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd always thought that Soccerbase is a good source since it has been used on many football pages along the EFL. I know, for instance, they still have Dwight Gayle's dob as one year off but usually they update stats in a good deal of time after appearances by the players. Iggy (Swan) 14:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The number of corrections I've submitted to Soccerway in 2019 has gone into double figures. At least they take notice of these submissions, but to claim Soccerway as more reliable at face value is a stretch of the imagination. Gricehead (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Umm, read again, I never said soccerway was more reliable! :/ Govvy (talk) 20:25, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Salif Sané career stats
Can somebody please have a word with who insists on messing around with the career stats box against MOS? GiantSnowman 09:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Category:Joan Gamper Trophy
This is not so much about the category itself (although it would become redundant) but the fact that articles are being created for this event this year. It is merely a friendly between Barcelona and someone else. These contain a small amount of information (which could be added to the main article as notes if required) and the team lines. Are they really necessary? I would also like to point out the 2019 La Liga-Serie A Cup: having a general article on this new event is fine (there currently isn't one), but the 2019 one has been named in a way that suggests to me the plan is to have a new one next year and so on, which again seems unneccessary. Crowsus (talk) 10:52, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Is there enough content for the Joan Gamper Trophy? Yes, probably. Do we need one on every single year? No. GiantSnowman 10:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Improving accessibility in club seasons articles: A proposed template update
I'm proposing a couple minor change to the WP:WikiProject Football/Club seasons template. This has been inspired by a discussions I recently read at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility and Talk:Utah Warriors. These changes are proposed to bring the current template in line with MOS:CONTRAST.

The colours currently used in the template are (for a win) and  (for a defeat). While these colours are WCAG 2.1 AAA compliant when used with black text, they fail the test when used against the default colour for unvisited Wikipedia pages. By changing to (for a win) and  (for a defeat), WCAG 2.1 AAA compliancy is ensured and fewer users are thus saved from having issues reading text on these pages.

While I think this was probably just a small oversight, I'd nonetheless like to run this by people here before making any changes. Please note that this is not intended to be a discussion of other aspects of the template (which I think does have issues, but more on that in time). All I seek here is input on whether there are any reasons at all (beyond WP:IDONTLIKEIT) as to why the colours shouldn't be changed to slightly lighter versions to ensure readability. Domeditrix (talk) 22:36, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm all for improving accessibility, so I support this change for the most part. I'm not happy with draws being in grey though. Can we not stick with a shade of yellow similar to what we already have? – PeeJay 22:59, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * While I wouldn't be averse to that at all, yellow is not currently the default colour for a draw in the club seasons template. When I'm back at my PC I can find which exact shade of yellow has the same saturation levels as these shades of green and red (if you're interested). —Domeditrix (talk) 23:07, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That’s interesting. In that case, I’ve never seen an article that follows the template you linked to. Everywhere seems to use #FFFFDD or #FFFFCC. – PeeJay 23:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The template is admittedly not in a great state right now. I'm hoping that consensus can be built on a point-by-point basis to bring it back into relevance, and seasons articles closer to WP:MOS generally. Perhaps that's overly ambitious, but as it stands club seasons articles are all over the place, and a good, well-documented template that has consensus behind it may go some way towards improving things on that front. —Domeditrix (talk) 23:50, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've found the hexcode for the corresponding yellow – actually it's, thanks  . In table of results it would look as follows:
 * {| class="wikitable"

!Date!!Opponent!!Venue!!Result!!Scorers!!Attendance!!Referee!!Position


 * - bgcolor = "#FFE3E3"
 * September 9, 2019 – 15:00||Manchester City||Home||1–4||Goleador||align="center"|21,334||Redcard||align="center"|20


 * - bgcolor = "#FFFFE3"
 * September 12, 2019 – 18:00||Arsenal||Away||0–0|| ||align="center"|38,550||Yellowcard||align="center"|17


 * - bgcolor = "#E3FFE3"
 * September 16, 2019 – 12:30||Portsmouth||Home||6–1||Goleador (2), Scorer (2), Central, Makeplay||align="center"|19,521||Lineman||align="center"|11


 * }


 * As I understand, your rationale for using yellow for draws is based on a traffic light-esque indication of results at a glance? Also, to clarify, there is zero intention that this should replace any textual indications of the result, merely to complement any text. Domeditrix (talk) 08:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC) Domeditrix (talk) 08:58, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What's interesting is, just to me and my bad eyes alone, I can distinguish between the proposed changes and see them as three different colours, i.e. they don't blend together, but I can't immediately distinguish which is a win, draw or loss, i.e. which colour is which, and when the second yellow is used, I can't immediatley distinguish between the win or draw. Interestingly I've never had a problem with the green and red used on sports pages, probably since the saturation level is high enough (well, that old Rabbitohs template made me no longer fear death, or at least blindness.) No comments on whether it's better for WP:MOS, or obviously how it looks to anyone else, but I'm not sure I can support the change. SportingFlyer  T · C  08:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Is there a difficulty in distinguishing the difference solely the case when red / yellow / green are used, or is it also an issue when draws are blank or grey? Domeditrix (talk) 08:50, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Isn't the yellow too bright? "#FFFFE3" (rather than "#FFFF93" ) seems the appropriate match for "#E3FFE3" and "#FFE3E3" . <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:53, 12 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Here is a comparison. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:01, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You're completely right. I'm going to update my illustrative table above. Domeditrix (talk) 08:58, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks nice, but fortunately for me, I've never had any issues with colour blindness. If this makes it easier for colour blind people to discern the colours, I'm for it; otherwise, we're better leaving things as they are. – PeeJay 09:02, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * My colour vision is fairly non-standard, and personally I find that the paler the colours used, the less likely it is that I can tell them apart; that's certainly the case with your red and green above. I include a Result column containing W D or L on a background of colour at the #FFFFCC level, and it's ONLY the Result column that has the colouring, not the whole row. As at 2017–18 Birmingham City F.C. season. There's nothing linked in that column, just black text which isn't an accessibility issue; because only that column is coloured, there's no massive wall of colour; and the WDL provides a textual indicator of what the colour "represents", so readers with non-standard colour vision can see at a glance the same trends of wins or losses that the colours illustrate, whch they can't from glancing at scorelines. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:05, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This is a pretty solid idea. If we don't need to worry about the lighter blue of unread links then higher contrast values are easier to achieve. As far as I'm concerned with this template, everything is on the table. Domeditrix (talk) 09:09, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * These changes are less for issues with colour blindness and more to improve the contrast. Text with lower contrast values are difficult for people, particularly those with poorer eyesight, to read. Use of colour in tables shouldn't come at the expense of this, and that's what these changes seek to accomplish. Domeditrix (talk) 09:07, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that there are two issues. Poor contrast that means people have trouble reading the table at all, which is why you propose the paler colours. And then there is people's different colour perception, notably colour blindness, which makes it difficult for people to see the information conveyed by the colours. The choice of red and green might not be best for the most common colour blindness. Struway's suggestion of a coloured column for the result and paler colour address both issues.
 * Another thing to consider is use of template styles to set the CSS for the template. Then CSS can be customised for certain accessibility issues if there is need. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:17, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Per WP:MOSCOLOUR, ensuring readability is the primary concern. Those with colour blindness can have the information communicated to them through text, but if the contrast is too low then it's impossible to even communicate things through text. As long as we're not using colour alone to show the result then things are fine. Domeditrix (talk) 09:25, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've updated the above colour box to show the appearance of unread articles. This demonstrates the potential contrast issues for unread articles with the existing colour scheme. Even with pretty much perfect vision, text in the 'lose' section is more difficult to read for the original. Domeditrix (talk) 09:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)


 * That's even worse, as if my eyes aren't messed up enough! :/ Govvy (talk) 09:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The new one is more difficult to read for you than the old one? Domeditrix (talk) 09:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If I understand the WP:MOSCOLOUR suggestion of using maroon and teal to help red-green colour blind readers, it would be better to use "#E3FFFF" than "#E3FFE3" for the win, i.e. compare a pale red with a pale blue-green rather than a pale green. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 10:18, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I am confused and I don't get it, I see colour code of #E3FFFF" and #E3FFE3 what's the colour suppose to be? Govvy (talk) 15:25, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * These color codes both have a background colour. You don't see the background colours? They are both pale bluey-greens so don't show so well against the talk page background. How amout this comparison of pale blue-green ( "#E3FFFF" ) instead of pale green ( "#E3FFE3" ).   <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;">  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:52, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't see the colours. Govvy (talk) 19:39, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

UEFA Super Cup
On the Chelsea F.C. players, the stats tables list their appearances from yesterday's competition in the Other column though I think that belongs in Europe since that is based on the winners of the European competitions. Thoughts? Iggy (Swan) 14:19, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd put all the shield/supercups in Other as they are glorified friendlies. That's the way I've always seen it done. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:29, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Why would appearances in a European club competition be placed in any column other than Europe, i.e. the one designated for appearances in European club competitions...? Mattythewhite (talk) 14:32, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Super cups should be in the Other column, 'Continental' is for seasonal tournaments, not single-match competitions. S.A. Julio (talk) 14:34, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Other" for me aswell. Kante4 (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Other" for me also, otherwise you will be combining it with either Europa League stats or Champions League stats. Govvy (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , I don't see why that should be problematic? Mattythewhite (talk) 14:49, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Easier to read the stats? I don't know, that was my thought process! Govvy (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think I dislike the whole practice of 'its one match, so it's a glorified friendly'. Its not like that in other sports as far as I can tell. Should be a European match IMO. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:47, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree it should be "Other", but in so doing, I'm not saying it's a glorified friendly. It's a super cup, not a season-long competition. It belongs in the same category as the Community Shield or the Club World Cup. – PeeJay 18:12, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * For the record, my opinion is based on the statistical breakdowns at StretfordEnd.co.uk. – PeeJay 18:16, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't think of the Community Shield before asking the question, both these cups are a single match only competitions and I see that the former competition is described as other in the stats table, e.g. Marcos Alonso. Iggy (Swan) 19:57, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't have strong feelings either way, but it makes a bit more sense in my mind to go under "Europe/Continental" given that it's a European competition. There's no worry about it clashing with Europa/Champions League stats because these are often share a spot when teams compete in both competitions in the same season, so it would just be a case of changing the note. The "Other" column would be better suited for tournaments like the Community Shield, Club World Cup etc. Liam E. Bekker (talk) 05:53, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Why should the Super Cup be treated any differently from the Community Shield or Club World Cup? Obviously you wouldn't include the Community Shield among "league" or "cup" matches, so why would you include the Super Cup among Champions League matches? By definition, a super cup of any description is an "Other" competition. – PeeJay 09:38, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Because it's *strictly* a European competition? Just a hunch... Mattythewhite (talk) 14:24, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Rankings Template
Some editors are trying to create a template for NCAA soccer rankings similar to the template used for basketball standings. However, the previous/next season buttons don't seem to be working right. Does anyone have any ideas about why? Dealing with this type of coding is way over my wikipedia knowledge. Thanks for any help anyone can provide!

Soccer rankings page: Template:Infobox NCAA soccer rankings

Basketball rankings page: Template:Infobox NCAA basketball rankings

Swimmer33 (talk) 18:53, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Well I've realized that it is because the basketball rankings span 2 years, but the soccer ones should only span one year. If that's any help.  I just can't figure out the code to make it work. Should I be asking this somewhere else? Swimmer33 (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The basketball template does a lot of extra stuff. If I follow it correctly, it handles previous names of the top division before 1973 and 1956. The soccer one doesn't need this. The template also appears to be matching to an existing page as condition of display. I've modified it so it shows the previous year (i.e. 2018) when used in the 2019 NCAA Division I men's soccer rankings and 2019 NCAA Division I women's soccer rankings pages. Have look and check I have done what is wanted. I think the link to next year will need a stub article for it to display so its hard to code it without an existing article. I can add this when there is one. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 16:27, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Awesome! Thank you so much!  I looked at the other NCAA rankings templates and it looks like the next year doesn't work until a page is created so that seems consistent.  I appreciate your help.  Swimmer33 (talk) 17:10, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I modifed the code for next season link and gave a preliminary test. It should work when the page is created. The rest of the template has some other extra code related to previous names of the basketball divisions that could be removed. Let me know if there are any changes you want made. I'm a bit confused by the page title using 2019 only, the season being 2019-2020 and the tournament in 2020. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;">  Jts1882 &#124; talk 17:18, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I went back and used the template on the 2018, 2017, and 2016 women's ranking pages and the code seems to work. I think the season should match the page title.  It seemed that the tournament was in error, so I fixed that.  Pretty sure the tournament error was because of copy pasting from the basketball template.  There, the tournament for the 2019-2020 season is the 2020 NCAA Tournament. I think its good for now?  I'll let you know if anything else wonky comes up!Swimmer33 (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs list - a few Italians listed
The list of unreferenced football BLPs has been updated. There are a number of Italian articles that are completely unreferenced due to dead external links being removed a while back. Hack (talk) 15:00, 17 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reminder. I will check are there any 10 y/o mess of mine in it. Matthew hk (talk) 07:21, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Info box question, (Betis or Real Betis)
On Giovani Lo Celso the club is just listed at Betis in the info box, should it be Real Betis or just Betis? Govvy (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * See the recent discussion from June (second discussion from bottom). Robby.is.on (talk) 12:21, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That did not answer my question what so ever. Govvy (talk) 13:14, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Use 'Real Betis'. GiantSnowman 13:24, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * k, have made the adjustments. Govvy (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Cameron Dawson and Neil Etheridge
On the clean sheets stats table for these two goalkeepers in the current Championship season, these two have been recorded with one clean sheet although both their teams actually conceded. The only match Neil Etheridge played in so far was the 3–2 defeat by Wigan and lasted 56 minutes while Cameron Dawson only played 10 minutes in a 3–1 away win over Reading after Keiren Westwood was sent off. Since those teams did not keep a clean sheet in 90 minutes with two goalkeepers participating, the opinion of User:Jts1882 says that the goalkeepers are not credited with the clean sheets. Iggy (Swan) 06:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What do reliable sources give as their stats? I notice at the moment that that table is completely unsourced...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:24, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I was going to ask the same. I see a link to transfermarkt was removed for being non-RS. Table is at 2019–20 EFL Championship. I would say a keeper can't claim a clean sheet if his team concedes a goal, but that is a personal opinion. Spike &#39;em (talk) 07:39, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think one issue is that there doesn't seem to be a 100% agreed definition of "keeping a clean sheet" in the era when sub goalies are a thing. Some might argue that a sub goalie can be said to have kept a clean sheet if he came on for the last 5 minutes and didn't concede any goals during the time he personally played, even if his team was already 10-0 down.  The comments above suggest that at least one user doesn't agree and thinks that a 'keeper should not be recorded as keeping a clean sheet if his team conceded a goal in the game, even if he wasn't on the pitch at the time...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:50, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As an alternative viewpoint, in fantasy football (the PL version anyway) A clean sheet is awarded for not conceding a goal whilst on the pitch and playing at least 60 minutes (excluding stoppage time). If a player has been substituted when a goal is conceded this will not affect any clean sheet bonus. Not sure what happens if a player is sent off after 60 minutes with a clean sheet in progress! Spike &#39;em (talk) 08:46, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I vaguely remember making a comment on this, but can't remember where. My thinking is that a clean-sheet is a when a team or goalkeeper doesn't concede a goal for a whole game. You wouldn't say a goalkeeper kept a cleansheet in the first 20 minutes of a game as the clean-sheet applies to the whole game, not just parts of it. If the team concedes it shouldn't count as a cleansheet even if one goalkeeper doesn't concede. It would be absurd that a susbtitute goalkeeper claims a cleansheet when his team lost 8-0 just because he didn't concede in the last five minutes. A further question would be is the clean-sheet a stat for the team or goalkeeper. If the former you could argue that two goalkeepers shared a cleansheet, but I think in general it is understood that a clean-sheet is a personal stat for the goalkeeper and he either keeps one for a whole game or it isn't one. But as always we should go by sources. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk


 * We do not record stats for clean sheets or assists or yellow cards etc., just games and goals. WP:NOTSTATS and WP:OR. GiantSnowman 08:55, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * We clearly do record stats on clean sheets - see e.g. 2018–19_Premier_League and, I suspect, many other places. Whether we should record them is a different matter, but it isn't accurate to say that we don't record them............ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant on player articles! GiantSnowman 09:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Regarding a clean sheet kept by the team, with the goalkeeper being substituted, on A-League pages we don't count them as cleansheets for the goalkeeper, but do include a note mentioning another clean sheet was kept. For example the case in 2016–17 when Melbourne City kept a clean sheet with a goalkeeper substitution. --SuperJew (talk) 15:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Abandoned, annulled and awarded matches/goals
First of all, kudos to User:S.A. Julio and everyone else who took part in creating and developing Module:Goalscorers and its subpages. Though I'm still getting used to how it works, I find it very convenient and functional and think it should be implemented widely, especially in articles on finals of major competitions.

To the point. These seems to be some disagreement regarding certain abandoned/annulled/awarded matches of the UEFA European Championship qualifying, and more specifically about whether and how they should be counted in overall statistics such as total matches played and goals scored, as well as in the lists of scorers.

Does it really need to be discussed that when a match is annulled, all the related records are annulled as well? And that when a result is awarded, the awarded scoreline (with no scorers), rather than the original scoreline and scorers, is the one that is taken into account? Isn't this the very point, purpose and definition of the actions of annulling and awarding matches or goals?

Why should overall statistics take into account records different than those that apply to the competition's official match results and group standings? Is this in line with what other sources, particularly UEFA, do?

By the same logic, we might as well start counting disallowed goals the same way. I guess you all remember the Spurs v City tie in the Champions League last season, when during the stoppage time of the return leg Raheem Sterling sent the ball into the net, the Etihad erupted in jubilation, and the TV screens and the livescores displayed the scoreline as 5–3, which would have sent City through. Should this goal be counted in Sterling's personal records and in City's team records notwithstanding that it was disallowed by VAR moments later? --Theurgist (talk) 14:04, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * What do the sources used to reference the statistics say? Spike &#39;em (talk) 14:15, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking at the case of the Netherland-Cyprus one (UEFA Euro 1988 qualifying Group 5), there's two sources (RSSSF and UEFA), both of which only list the match results for the group and don't have a "top scorers" table..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:20, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * UEFA have Claesen as the top-scorer in the 1988 qualifiers, with Bosman on 4 goals. They don't split it by group so a small amount of interpretation is needed to get a list by group Spike &#39;em (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * RSSSF's main page on Euro 1988 says that the overall top scorers (qualifying + finals) are Altobelli, Van Basten and Claesen with 7 goals each, while Van Basten is the top scorer in the finals only. There's no mention of Bosman. To me it makes no sense at all to count the records of both matches if the replay was played specifically so as to be counted instead of the original match. --Theurgist (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Is there somewhere else where the disagreement regarding certain abandoned/annulled/awarded matches happened? Spike &#39;em (talk) 14:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * See the edits I made (29 July and 15 August) which were all reverted by S.A. Julio. See also "UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying" (August 2018) and "Scorers in forfeited matches" (March 2018), as well as the pages linked therefrom, for other related discussions I've participated in. --Theurgist (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I tried to take a consistent approach to the formatting that would be used, based on recent examples in articles, such as 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL) (which tally the goals in the Bolivia v Peru match) and 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Third Round (which tally the goals in the South Africa v Senegal match). Also, I think an important distinction to recognise is that "goals scored" is not necessarily the same as the number of goals which are counted in the standings/playoffs. If a result is awarded, these count in the group table, but should not be counted in the infobox or the goalscorer section. One useful feature of the module is that it automatically calculates the number of goals scored for players, outputting the overall number and average. At UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying Group G, it would make little sense to add three "awarded goals" to the tally, one would expect to be able to count the tally of the scorers (i.e. 8 (Dzyuba) + 8 (Ibrahimović) + 7 (Janko)...) and get the correct total. S.A. Julio (talk) 14:55, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But UEFA don't include the goals in their goalscorers totals, so unless you want to indulge in some WP:OR then we should go with what the sources tell us. Spike &#39;em (talk) 16:16, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:CALC applies, the scorers are still listed in the match reports. S.A. Julio (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's irrelevant - if a match is declared null and void then to all intents and purposes it is treated as if it never happened. To indicate that a player finished as top scorer in a competition because his stats include a ton of goals scored in a match which was declared null and void is absolute nonsense.  You could add a footnote to a player's goal figure saying "Dave Example also scored three goals in a game which was declared null and void", but they absolutely shouldn't be included in his stats (in the same way that statistical sources for English players of the 1930s do not include games played in the abandoned 1939-40 season, all of which were declared null and void) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:05, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Well there clearly is disagreement on Wikipedia, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Third Round counts the goals of Hlatshwayo, Serero and N'Doye from the annulled RSA-SEN match. S.A. Julio (talk) 20:53, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The UEFA 1988 qualifiers page lists the NED v CYP game as Match cancelled and do not include it in their goalscorers list.Spike &#39;em (talk) 17:02, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

on Oliver Langford
Is he really worth a Wikipedia article? If so, is the article written by this new user has fulfill Wikipedia's BLP article standard? – Flix11 (talk) 14:42, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Might be a WP:BLP1E. Are referees only considered notable if they officiate at the top level? I see our notability guidelines don't specify anything. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 15:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Do other PL referees have articles? If so what are the crieria? One match in a fully professional league is sufficient for a player. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:22, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To answer my first question, these categories cover football referees in England. Category:Premier_League_referees, Category:English Football League referees, Category:English football referees. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk

Template:Excelsior squad
Should the template be moved to Template:S.B.V. Excelsior squad or Template:SBV Excelsior squad ? Govvy (talk) 12:17, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * SBV Excelsior squad to match the parent article name. GiantSnowman 12:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ --SuperJew (talk) 15:21, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * hmm, cheers. Question know, if all the links are used correctly, do we need template redirection? Govvy (talk) 15:51, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No reason not to have the redirects IMO. --SuperJew (talk) 16:03, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you might of messed it up somehow, I can't edit the template, it keeps bouncing to redirects. Govvy (talk) 15:55, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks OK to me. I can edit the template. Sometimes these changes take time to settle. Something to do with caches or something more arcane. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 16:00, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I see the problem. I just moved it but didn't update the edit link. Try now :) --SuperJew (talk) 16:02, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Club kit template request?
Hi, is there anyone I can reach out to for a kit request? I would do it on my own but the kits in question are a bit intricate. Thanks, <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 16:40, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Jack Roles content dispute
Hello, could the community please review the edit dispute between me and on the new article Jack Roles. Unfortunately, the article creator is showing Ownership and I don't want to edit war. I tried to take it to the talk page but unfortunately I think the point I am trying to make is being missed. "The match was an eventful one which saw Cambridge win 3–2 with Scunthorpe's James Perch being sent off in the first half." is not relevant to the player and is akin to journalism, so it should be removed from the article. JMHamo (talk) 21:35, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * LOL, really, you want to robotise the article, how lame, I hate it that people like you want to remove relevant information, I clear said what happened in his debut, whats your obsession with removing the score and events of the match that happened in his debut match? Govvy (talk) 21:40, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You do realise this is an encyclopedia and not a tabloid rag? JMHamo (talk) 21:41, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would cut down both sentences to "Roles made his Cambridge and English Football League debut in a 3–2 home victory over Scunthorpe United." I agree that the second sentence is not relevant to the subject. LTFC 95 (talk) 21:45, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree with LTFC 95. The "eventful" bit is not appropriate for Wikipedia IMO. Number   5  7  21:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Why do you want to strip what happened in his debut match? Everything is relevant, the sending off is relevant to the scoreline, a sending off is an event in a match, hence eventful. Also, why do you want to dehumanise an article, we have multiple articles, so many of them poorly written. You want to make another article poorly written? Seriously, are you going to resort to sentences starting On date, over and over again. Do not destroy another article people, and please don't destroy this article, I have only just added it to main space, it makes me sick you want to robotise the language. Govvy (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If the player was sent off on his debut then I would agree that it should be included. The second sentence without "was an eventful one" would be fine as prose in Cambridge's season article, but not in a player article about a different player. The prose in a player article should only consist of notable content about that player. LTFC 95 (talk) 22:10, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree, "eventful" should be removed. Would also be nice to disambig the city of birth. Kante4 (talk) 22:21, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Disambig ✅ JMHamo (talk) 22:33, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's an article about Jack Roles. Unless Roles played a part in the sending off of Perch or some remarkable event happened in connection with the sending off the it has no place being mentioned in Roles's article. Furthermore show don't tell, it should be explained what made the game "eventful", if indeed it was. If it was eventful because there were five goals then that fact is already stated in the scoreline. I don't think one sending off to another player is notable.--EchetusXe 10:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Just read that it wasn't Roles who was sent off. Should absolutely be removed. Kante4 (talk) 10:21, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Should not be included. Not relevant to the player concerned. Eagleash (talk) 10:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've removed it and cleaned up the article. What a mess. GiantSnowman 11:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What are you people on about? I don't understand you people, why are you lot saying the events of the football match that Jack Roles took part in, on his debut, are not relevant to him? That makes no sense what so ever, a debut has a profound impact on a players career, what happened, what he saw, the events of a single game like that are integral to his life. It's a biography? If you people don't start to wake up! And another thing, I don't know, the fact I created another small article for wikipedia football project yet again, good job on anyone saying thank you, you've just criticised my language skills, my bit of hard work, frankly, I feel as if everyone is being rude to me here, this project is being very disrespectful to me and the article. Govvy (talk) 11:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Date, competition, opponent, scoreline, and if they did something personally significant (goal, assist, clean sheet, gave away a penalty, cards) is the most I would usually include. I might make some concessions for a shared debut, or if in posterity the match turned out to be significant for other reasons, such as the final game of a significant players career, replaced a particular person due to injury, contributed a particularly stunning performance, or received specific plaudits or criticism. However as it was a run of the mill debut, this doesn't appear likely. Koncorde (talk) 22:28, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

UEFA club coefficient ranking?
Just added this new section to Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and some other clubs, does it really mean anything know? I am not sure how it adds any information to the club article, seems a bit meaningless to me. Govvy (talk) 12:55, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't see any great harm in it as long as it's sourced, but it's more relevant to clubs' European record so really belongs in the articles for that, unless they don't have one (but most big clubs do, and that article should include the ranking - if it doesn't, it is a useful addition). Crowsus (talk) 15:09, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What is wrong is that the editor put many of the rankings under the Honours section. Ranking is never an honour, therefore it is wrong to put it there. I also think it is something that worth only a single line rather than a table. Hzh (talk) 09:46, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

FIFA AFC Second Round Tables
Hey guys can anyone help me with 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – AFC Second Round page. Sakiv has been adding content on which, about which I have already discussed to him on his talk page, and the page's talk page. I know the talk isn't much, but he isn't replying to any of my queries. He has been updating outdated content, and is just reverting the version which I restored. Can someone help to mediate in this issue.--Anbans 585 (talk) 20:40, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for intervening, I will have a full proper conversation about it with Sakiv, until then would it be possible to restore the version, as currently the page stands at a point which makes it incomplete, given that how dates in group tables of future matches has not been mentioned. It would be also helpful if anyone uses any other method, what I just want is that the page would not seem incomplete due to our stupid edit war.--Anbans 585 (talk) 20:49, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * At this time, due to the full protection, it is currently not possible for a reversion to the transcluded format. According to Sakiv, there was a discussion on this page regarding how the tables were to be used, but I cannot find the discussion here nor in recent archives, and therefore will take a neutral stance on this matter. Jalen D. Folf   (talk)  21:33, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Courtesy pinging to this discussion for his take on the matter and as a request to link the original discussion related to this.  Jalen D. Folf   (talk)  21:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Tables should stay in the original article, not create dozens of useless templates. I invite the first editor who has merged the tables into the article to give his opinion. See here--Sakiv (talk) 03:16, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

That's not the reference for the Footy discussion, that's one of the many group table format changes being done on that page. So far the format has been changed atleast three times on that page. I think that it is better to add that Footy reference to the second round page, else someone will again try to switch around the tables. The only problem with changing tables is that it is a lot of content, and while doing mass edit someone always do somekind of incorrect editing.--Anbans 585 (talk) 07:24, 23 August 2019 (UTC)


 * This was discussed here extensively, regarding moving tables into articles rather than separate templates. Gricehead (talk) 09:03, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference, will add the same on the page's talk page for future references.--Anbans 585 (talk) 16:43, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't see a clear consensus from the discussion that standing tables should never be in the template namespace, especially when they are grouped together such as Template:2018–19 UEFA Champions League group tables. This is a valid use of the template namespace, and helps for quicker updating. Forcing to have module code in the article makes it unwieldy and adds a burden to those volunteering their time to try and update the standings, especially since the probability of edit conflicts and accidental duplicate/removal of updates is greater. S.A. Julio (talk) 08:43, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think there is no simple rule that can apply to all articles. It makes sense to separate widely used tables into templates, e.g. in the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group tables example above. If its widely used it should be watched or protected. It makes less sense to have lots of templates with only a couple of uses.
 * One disadvantage of including all the the tables in the main article and selectively transcluding is that selective transclusion loads the whole page, so slows down the page loading and can sometimes exceed the transclusion limits. The latter means that edits to the main page that have nothing to do with the transcluded section may unexpectedly cause template transclusion errors in other pages. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 10:11, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

2019–20 Segunda División
I just came across the article, but what's with Positions by round and Results by round, isn't this overkill? Govvy (talk) 18:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah it's overkill and it's not just the Seguna Division, here is the list of leagues that I had to remove for that exact same reason. HawkAussie (talk) 01:27, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * 2019–20 Ekstraklasa
 * 2019–20 Serie B
 * 2019–20 Ligue 1
 * 2019–20 Croatian First Football League
 * 2019–20 Nemzeti Bajnokság I
 * 2019–20 Primeira Liga
 * 2019–20 Segunda División B
 * 2019–20 Danish Superliga


 * They were added in dozens of places, disruptively in my view, by an IP - as I posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 126, but nobody seemed to care then. I have removed from all French leagues below Ligue 1. Gricehead (talk) 16:52, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's a WP:FANCRUFT issue that is not held simply to football articles, but everywhere. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:55, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As above - remove with extreme prejudice. GiantSnowman 17:55, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

US youth national team player database?
Hi, is there any database for players who have represented the USA at youth level (such as for the U17 or U20 team) indicating caps and goals scored? Thanks, <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 22:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So, I'm guessing there is no such database? <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 16:39, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's generally pretty hard to find reliable and complete stats for youth level football. Have you tried asking at WT:WikiProject Football/United States and Canada task force? Hack (talk) 05:20, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

AFC club rankings
There should be single source, from where the AFC Club rankings should be put in the article of the respective clubs. In case of most of the clubs, this website is considered. so, we can have the rankings from this source only, and no other. 😄 S a   h a  17:04, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Que? Kante4 (talk) 17:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think forgot to link the website in question. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 18:13, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * oh sorry. i added it. 😄 S a   h a  18:28, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Someone Please reply... 😄 S a   h a  16:38, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Site does not look reliable but i could be wrong. Kante4 (talk) 16:41, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The site gives a reference page with afc.com as the primary source. Wouldn't that be the obvious choice as that is, I assume, the official site of the AFC? <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 16:46, 25 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Unreliable, I have removed this from a few Asian club articles in the past. Official AFC rankings from their website is only for countries/leagues to allocate the number of teams per country in the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup. Something like "AFC Club rankings" doesnt even exist, only a random fan-made rankings like at this website, they even cited Wikipedia as a source for calculating. Snowflake91  (talk) 22:15, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * ya, all the rankings are unofficial. no such thing exist officially. but most of the club articles use footyrankings. 😄 S a   h a  16:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It existed about a year from 2014 onwards. But even the it was only used "for fun/information" and not for seeding in the AFC tournaments or anything. Article should mention the AFC doens't use this anymore. -Koppapa (talk) 16:55, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Internazionale vs Inter Milan in player infoboxes
"Internazionale" and "Inter Milan" are both used in the infoboxes of players who currently, or previously have played at the club. As an example, Romelu Lukaku has "Inter Milan", while Mauro Icardi has "Internazionale". It seems as though we should come to one unified standard usage of the team name in player infoboxes. I suggest using "Internazionale" since that is the name used at 2019–20 Serie A. TrailBlzr (talk) 01:57, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It would be more consistent to use "Inter Milan", in line with the title of our article on the club. Jellyman (talk) 06:29, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree. "Inter Milan" is the name used most widely in the English press and literature, which is why the English Wikipedia artitle uses Inter Milan as the page title. The name on top of the infobox should be changed to match the article title (it currently uses "Internazionale"). I have no strong objection to a change to "Internazionale", if this was the consensus after discussion, but the same name should be used for all (club page title and infobox within, player infoboxes, etc). <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:17, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Inter Milan" is the correct term for the English Wikipedia, as expanded above. --SuperJew (talk) 08:49, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Inter Milan", as per the above. Liam E. Bekker (talk) 09:55, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree - that is the most consistent approach. Leaky caldron (talk) 09:56, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Also agree. Whilst I (and others) don't believe the article should be located at 'Inter Milan', while it is that is what we should display in articles. GiantSnowman 13:38, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would say "Inter Milan" and "Internazionale" are common names of the club. I had stated reliable source such as ESPN on the RM, which the source used the two terms in interchangeably. Yes, i saw way many edit war on "Inter Milan" and "Internazionale" in infobox, but i am not sure it would became a voting consensus or something else if we just forcing to one option without listing reliable source in the discussion. Matthew hk (talk) 15:14, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The very fact that both "Inter Milan" and "Internazionale" are common names for the club is the exact reason why the article should be located at F.C. Internazionale Milano. (I bet some of you would have bet on me contributing to this discussion earlier!) – PeeJay 02:34, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Lost a good amount of money to my bookmaker... Kante4 (talk) 14:52, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I too agree with the article should be located at F.C. Internazionale Milano. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 19:36, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * perhaps a move to simply Internazionale would suffice. Seems in keeping with both WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NCST. It's also the name used both inside and outside Italy. I would support it. TrailBlzr (talk) 14:06, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Well a new RM was opened. For the pipe, as a compromise, i don't mind pipe to just "Inter" for Italian footballer in most case. Matthew hk (talk) 05:22, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Salford City edit
Should this edit be striked? Govvy (talk) 10:48, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It should be undone, but I can't see anything there that would require it to be deleted from the public record. Number   5  7  11:33, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It has been removed. Eagleash (talk) 11:36, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The edit wrote: Nicknamed the "wankers"... seemed pretty offensive to me. Thought it came under WP:LIBEL. Govvy (talk) 11:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems like just run-of-the-mill trolling from a rival fan base. Vandalism, for sure, but nothing more. Smartyllama (talk) 18:14, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Paul Merton had a famous interaction with Angus Deayton over a similar statement, where Angus kept repeating the word "allegedly" after each time he uttered the word. Merton pointed out that to be sued he would need to prove he hadn't ever... Deytons reply: "Touche". Koncorde (talk) 12:39, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/2.247.249.186 and now 2.247.251.79
Can someone delegate a bot to mass revert this IP user edits? He seems to have a real problem with persons of German ancestry (not just footballers but everyone else) and he also used a few different IPs recently. BlameRuiner (talk) 18:29, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You need someone with mass rollback or similar... GiantSnowman 18:42, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've done this manually... GiantSnowman 12:17, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for blocking Special:Contributions/2.247.251.79 too since the last IP was blocked: this person seems to be on a Crusade ! Matilda Maniac (talk) 21:44, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Train stations associated with football clubs
I was wondering if we should be putting the football project template on train stations article talk pages that might have some association with football clubs or not. I wasn't sure weather to add the project template to White Hart Lane railway station or not. Govvy (talk) 20:40, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Where would you draw the line? Hack (talk) 03:45, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think those are ours to add to the project, honestly. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:25, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't there's any reason for this. The only relation is that they are close to stadiums. Big deal. --SuperJew (talk) 04:29, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It wasn't just that, Tottenham paid for the station upgrades and I only put this conversation down as currently Arsenal tube station has the football project talk template on that one. So was wondering where the line is drawn. Govvy (talk) 08:26, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe ask the railway Wikiproject.--EchetusXe 08:52, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This is far outside our scope. It could potentially be added to some of our articles (and the other way around), but that's not a project level issue IMO. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:55, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The mention of a football club can work in a train station article (especially when talking about infrastructure upgrades or matchday traffic), but does not belong in the club article. The stadium article should also talk about transport links anyway, so it would work there too (see CenturyLink Field and Stadium station (Sound Transit) as examples).  Sounder Bruce  05:35, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don´t agree that it doesn´t belong to club articles necessarilly. In some cases may be worth mention, I guess some cases of "Club culture" sections when they exist, or similar. Although the exemples brought by Govvy raise indeed the question. FkpCascais (talk) 06:15, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Arsenal is a special case as the underground station name was changed to match the name of the club. White Hart Lane may become a second special case, although this is looking less likely. THFC may have paid something towards the station upgrades, but I think most s106 reequirements on the new stadium were eventual waived after the Tottenham riots and the Stratford flirtation. The new stadium was the reason for the station upgrades and clearly a matter for inclusion in the article but I don't see why a football project template is needed. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;">  Jts1882 &#124; talk 06:37, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't forget Manchester United Football Ground railway station. The station is right next to the ground, only operates on matchdays and is named after the club. I think the WP:FOOTY banner is appropriate for the talk page. – PeeJay 07:04, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

National teams as tenants at random stadiums
I see some editors adding a national team as a tenant of a stadium, when it only plays random matches, but not more than one in a year, in it. Is it necessary to add it, for example, here? I think it does not, but I don't want start another war of edits before consulting. Asturkian (talk) 05:31, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Very interesting question. I guess the issue is about the inclusion in the infobox, right? Because properly sourced information about nt games in artivle body I think is always welcomed. Well, I am not sure about this. Should there be a number of games per space of time limit? Or, are there national federations which specify which stadiums they use? I leave it to others to provide imputs, I just culdn´t resist not adding my tought this was a great question. FkpCascais (talk) 06:04, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it is absurd to include it for NT's that does not have a specific stadium, like Spain. For example, is adequate to say Wanda Metropolitano is the stadium for selected matches of Spain when it only played just one game? Or Estadio Reino de León just having hosted three matches in 20 years? Asturkian (talk) 06:40, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think a national team playing occasional games makes it a tenant. What about the rugby games held at Wembley and Anfield? Do the designated home teams get added as tenants? A long term contract for a team or organisation to play one or two matches a year at a stadium would be a better case for adding it as a tenant. <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 06:45, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

The Tenant field has been mis-used for years, who ever wrote documentation for it has completely messed it up in my opinion. Tenant field should be used only when a club uses a venue that is not the owner. If there has only ever been one Owner, the tenant field should be void and not used. As for national teams, technically, an national team isn't a tenant and shouldn't be listed there, the Federation should really be listed. Govvy (talk) 07:52, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree - most people would consider the field to refer to who uses it on a regular basis. You could make an argument that it should be renamed to serve its intended purpose rather than its literal meaning, but I can't think of a good alternative. That being said, unless a national team uses it on a regular basis, it should not be in the infobox. Smartyllama (talk) 19:01, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Fulham player lists
Hi all, I have updated the Fulham player lists (over 100 apps, 25-99 apps and 1-24 apps) as accurately as I could, they have not been touched in a year and the server crashed while I was updating the international stats. Would any other Fulham fans be able to run an eye over for any errors and keep them up to date. Player appearances should be correct up to 24 August (I had noticed a couple of duplicate entries which I have removed), and players like Arter and Knockaert have all been added.

I will do my best to update them myself - I have started adding images to the pages as well. There are also a lot of red-links to players from the 80s backwards which could do with being created. Thanks. 03 md  21:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Anyone? The pages are now fully illustrated, there are now articles for all players who have made 100 or more appearances but plenty need creating for the other lists. 03  md  03:46, 1 September 2019 (UTC)