Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues/Archive 7

Making the list accord with Fully Professional wording
Further to my post above regarding the realities of the sourcing in this article, given the outcome, it seems reasonable to consider pruning the list of those entries that don't in any way present any evidence of being fully pro (e.g. Colombia, Egypt, Serbia, Switzerland), and which only have reference to 'professional'. Whilst anyone is able to delete any entries that do not meet the list's own inclusion criteria I thought it useful to seek views on the matter. In the longer term it would be better if we could produce a list of notable leagues that did not have to rely on references to 'fully pro'. Before any entries are removed consideration should be given as to whether the reference should be placed elsewhere e.g. the league or FA page. Eldumpo (talk) 07:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think in some cases, common sense is enough. Removing Switzerland, for instance, would be ridiculous. Number   5  7  09:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to see Egypt go, maybe Colombia, due to the lack of articles meeting GNG. GiantSnowman 09:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Number 57 - a degree of common sense is of course sensible, although the page (in conjunction with NSPORT) is often treated as black and white by editors. Anything without sources meeting the given criteria is a candidate for exclusion, although with Switzerland I did mean to specify the Challenge League (2nd level). Anyway, noting some consensus above I will look to selectively trim some of the entries. Eldumpo (talk) 18:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Urgh. Absolutely not. This is the opposite of what we should be doing. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Chris, can you clarify what you think we should be doing then been as you talk of 'opposite'. Start adding leagues to the list that are not professional? Eldumpo (talk) 20:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * We've had those for years. Every now and then a well-meaning editor removes them (the Scottish First Division being a particularly notable example). So yes, step one is halting the well-meaning but incorrect purging of notable non-fully-pro league from the list. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If references mention its a professional league, that means it is fully professional. What you would what to be looking for is articles that mention those leagues are semi-pro in order to remove them from the list. Because professional in a newspaper or the like pretty much always means fully professional. -DJSasso (talk) 12:24, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, we've found in the past that that's not the case. "Professional" does not always equate to "fully professional". Number   5  7  12:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I know people have said they have found such things. But I have never found a case where a league is called professional and the players are still required to pay part of the expenses of play which is what makes a league not fully professional (along with low pay). But I am sure there are probably some out there somewhere. However, I doubt its any on this list. Either way I meant almost always. -DJSasso (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just as an example, the source listed for Lithuania quotes one of the A Lyga managers of saying that his club was not professional. He goes on to describe that there are several part-timers on the team. I don't remember which one, but in afd I was involved in, someone presented a source describe the league as professional. Sir Sputnik (talk) 13:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I am sad and surprised Eldumpo mentioned Serbia, as the league has been fully professional since ever I know (even the second league, Serbian First League, seems to be professional, but I have no time neither interess for time being to bring it here). Why Serbia, what is wrong with Serbia?  Half of the other mentioned leagues are not as half as pro as the Serbian one... FkpCascais (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Serbia was just used as an example, partly because the existing reference is so poor. Can you find a better reference? Eldumpo (talk) 20:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess it comes down to what one's definition of fully professional is. Part-timers isn't usually the criteria in my part of the world that differentiates fully professional and semi-pro. It usually comes down to is every player paid (regardless of amount) and are all their travel expenses and equipment etc paid for by the team. For example the NCAA considers athletes fully professional if they even take a single dollar for a game. Players in semi-pro American football leagues for example usually pay their own travel and buy their own equipment and that is what differentiates them from professional leagues. But there are players in fully pro leagues that have to take on a second job because they don't make enough from their sports job. Even in the very top level fully pro leagues. This was common right up until the 80's in the top ice hockey league in the world (NHL). So its very difficult to say a league isn't fully professional just because some players take second jobs. -DJSasso (talk) 13:43, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * We need to move away from "fully-professional leagues" and towards "notable leagues" i.e. a list of leagues, playing in which grants you 'automatic notability' as it is assumed you meet GNG. This will indeed include many of the current FPL, but some 'fully-professional' leagues should not grant automatic notability, and some currently not included should be added. GiantSnowman 13:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I completely agree with Djsasso and GiantSnowman. If a league is reported as professional and there are no clubs reported as semi professional, then we can safely treat the league as fully professional. For example, according to Hellenic Football Federation's regulations, the top 3 leagues of Greek football are professional, which means that all clubs in those leagues have to carry a professional licence, which means that they are required by law to pay a minimum wage to their players (which is why some Football League 2 clubs can't pay wages and are therefore demoted to the amateur championships – but that's another story). I don't see the reason why those leagues can't be considered fully professional. The real issue here is the amount of non-trivial coverage those lower "fully professional" leagues receive, and I believe we should focus our energy on establishing that. Cheers. –  Kosm  1  fent  14:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If some of the players in a league having an offseason job is enough to keep a league from being "fully professional", then there were no fully professional sports in America before, say, 1970. Is that really where we want to go with this? -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 16:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, but we're not talking about American sports here. Different sports have different criteria (for instance the US college athletes in various sports that have articles wouldn't if they were footballers). Number   5  7  17:01, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Except that we are talking about American sports because association football is played in North America as well. The "fully professional" wording of the criteria actually dates back to when WP:ATHLETE used to say that. But as we see its not the best wording which is why it was dropped from all the other sports. The only sport that didn't drop it when wp:athlete was rewritten was the football project. And I can say that outside the football project its a pretty big bone of contention that it was the only sports project that didn't tighten up its standards and rewrite them in a more clear way. And I would note college athletes only have articles through meeting GNG which would mean they still would if they were just footballers. -DJSasso (talk) 17:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Then I'd hate to think how lax the two codes of rugby were before they tightened up their criteria, as their criteria are now exactly the same as football (played in a fully pro league). And one could argue that it's even laxer for baseball - for which players only need to have played in the top division in a country, regardless of whether it's professional or not. Number   5  7  17:47, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Baseball requires them to be professional leagues though the wording is somewhat less than clear on that I agree. Top-level is referring to them being the top professional league in the country similar to the leagues it mentions by name. Baseball is possibly the most strict of the team sports in that they don't even allow the fully professional minor league players to have pages (unless they directly meet GNG). Generally in discussions at NSPORTS and similar venues Baseball and Soccer are often seen to be the two extremist camps. One too strict the other too lenient. -DJSasso (talk) 17:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The baseball criteria says "Have appeared in at least one game in any one of the following active major leagues... or any other top-level national league." To me that's fairly clearly any national league regardless of professional status. Perhaps it's just spectacularly badly written. But anyway, we digress. Having been around for six years or so now, I would say that a lot more articles are deleted because their subjects fail WP:NFOOTY than are kept. Because of the heavy coverage football gets, it's quite easy to write a detailed and very well referenced article on a player in the fifth tier in England. However, the existence of WP:NFOOTY generally persuades editors not to (even though in some cases they could pass WP:GNG). Number   5  7  18:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope, wrong. The baseball guideline applies only to professional leagues. As anyone with even a smidgen of knowledge about baseball would know, there are no "top-level amateur national leagues". -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 14:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The Colombian top division is nationally televised in the United States and has a long history of professionalism. Current players will almost certainly gain significant coverage in the Colombian newspapers and magazines (e.g., Futbol Red, El Pais, El Tiempo and El Colombiano). The problem is that few editors have bothered to flesh out these articles with appropriate sourcing (I'm to blame for several of these articles I started years ago). I'm not convinced removing Colombia from this list is the best approach. Jogurney (talk) 19:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Jo, happy to place much weight on what you say but would be better if you could find some sources that clarify the true status of the league. Eldumpo (talk) 20:37, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Let's just clarify this. The prevailing consensus at the moment is that it is the list which is correct and the wording which is wrong. So let's stop wasting time quibbling over whether such-and-such a league is "fully professional" for the moment, as that isn't the thing that needs remedied here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think thats been the consensus of every drawn out discussion we have ever had on this topic. We go around in circles, same proposals same editors making them, ultimately we never get anything sorted. Blethering  Scot  15:56, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Find some indicators
Like I also explained above I think some quality criteria would in my opinion be more useful than changing the notability criterias. But if we really want to find an agreement to differentiate between leagues where one appearance is enough and where 5/10/x appearances are enough this only could work when the first step is to agree on some indicators like TV and stadium spectator statistics and economical factors. So for example we could agree:


 * Players of leagues with 10.000 (or another number) spectators per match in the last five years are generally notable.
 * Players of a league where every single match of the league is transmitted by nationwide reachable tv channels are generally notable.
 * Players of a league where the average budget of the clubs in the league amounts at least ... €/$ are generally notable.

For the remaining leagues we could look for good values in two or three of our indicator criteria.

Example: ''Two of the following criteria must be met to be a league which makes notable after 1 appearance - one of the following criteria must be met to be notable after 5/10/x appearances:


 * 1) league had 5.000 spectators per match in the last five years
 * 2) xx matches of a league season are transmitted by nationwide reachable tv channels
 * 3) The average budget of the clubs in the league amounts at least ... €/$

--Blanc98 (talk) 21:21, 12 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Quality criteriums would fix our problem much better than this calculations and limitations... And nº of spectators? Come on, that´s too relative... Higher quality standars qould fix the problem for real, this calculations and place in ranking list varibles are not practical at all. FkpCascais (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree with your first sentence. But if the majority here wants to invent some criteria with a similar system like in French Wikipedia this can only work when we find such indicators before we differentiate between leagues. This is a point where the French Wikipedia failed and created a random sorting of nations instead of leagues. --Blanc98 (talk) 21:43, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with club budgets, numbers of spectators or TV transmitions is that they are mostly limited for recent seasons for most leagues. What about articles of players from the 1960s? Not to mention 1930s or even before... It would be too experimental to implement for historical players as well.
 * The only practical possibility that I see is to exclude only the top leagues of the big-5: England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. I think these leagues are worldwide regarded as the top one, so that would end up being less polemical.  Another option is the UEFA clb coefficient. About the rest, well, limit 5 if you, I mean all participants of this discussion, find that will fix something... FkpCascais (talk) 21:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe Liga MX for example beats Ligue 1 in many ways. But in both leagues one appearance surely should make notable. There are a lot of another leagues (also in Europe) which from a comprehensible point of view of a lot of people are not worser than Ligue 1.
 * If we agree on some indicators this indicators should refer to the circumstances of the 21st century. But if a league meets the criteria today we can assume that it also would have met criteria which are adjusted to the time of their foundation. (To declare that a league just for a special period of time makes notable surely does not make sense) --Blanc98 (talk) 22:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we rather should focus on ranking the league from an "English Wikipedia POV", which means that we should have some English-language bias, because there is more people who will edit a League Two player then an average Allsvenskan player. The Liga MX might be better then Ligue 1 in a lot of ways but the amount of low-quality stubs from Liga MX is much bigger then from Ligue 1, and our notability guideline should reflect that in some way. Mentoz86 (talk) 06:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * When you call something notability guidelines and it is only based on the intention to delete articles with bad quality this violates the principles of Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia is the center of all language versions. The most Users of other language versions at least understand English and a lot of Users work in English Wikipedia even like in the Wikipedia of their mother language. When Users who work on an article in their mother language version notice that the English version is deleted with "not notable" as official reason this will surely not animate this Users to improve articles about players of their country in English Wikipedia because it gives the impression that the English Wikipedia is not neutral. It may be so that the intention of all here is to improve quality. But administrators who are not involved into the project will justify deletion decisions with: Does not meet football player notability criteria. Nobody who is not involved in this discussion will understand the real reason for the deletion. But when we create quality criteria which can cause deletion the decisions could be officially justified with: Does not meet quality criteria. --Blanc98 (talk) 08:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with you, I know my "mother language" (Norwegian Wikipedia) has this "quality criteria" where articles with less then 2 complete sentences, 15 words or 75 letters are deleted after 7 days. But that is not a discussion for the Football Project, but a discussion for the entire English Wikipedia. Mentoz86 (talk) 12:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposition to include NWSL
National Women's Soccer League will start playing in spring of 2013. It'll be a fully professional league. So I propose to include it on list.--SirEdimon (talk) 16:37, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Provide reliable sources to confirm this, and your more than welcome to add it yourself. Sir Sputnik (talk) 16:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

They yet to have a official site, but every women's soccer site in the world reported this. The salaries will be paid by the USSF, the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) and the Mexican Football Federation. Here's the official description of the league:

"Description U.S. Soccer will play a major role in organizing and running the league to ensure a business model with a focus on sustainability.

U.S. Soccer will subsidize the salaries of up to 24 U.S. Women’s National Team players while the Canadian Soccer Association will do the same for up to 16 Canadian players and the Federation of Mexican Football will do the same for up to 12 Mexican players."

Here some sites: http://equalizersoccer.com/2012/11/21/eight-teams-to-start-new-womens-pro-soccer-league-in-2013/ http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Womens-National-Team/2012/11/Cheryl-Bailey-Named-Executive-Director-of-New-Womens-Soccer-League.aspx http://www.nj.com/soccer-news/index.ssf/2012/12/on_soccer_new_womens_pro_leagu.html

Is there enough or we have to wait till they release an official site?--SirEdimon (talk) 17:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This page is mainly used for helping to determine whether players who have appeared in the league should be considered notable. As nobody will play in this league until next spring there is no need for any hurry in listing it here. I note that only up to 52 players will have their pay subsidized, so the official description is not enough to show that the league will be fully professional. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * And is it just me or are "subsidised pay" and "professional pay" two different things? GiantSnowman 17:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This just means that the associations are paying some top players extra, the clubs themselves will pay the other players. See this article which contrasts the new pro league with the semi-pro women's setup in England. 176.253.110.119 (talk) 22:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The league will be fully professional. The federations will only help to pay the salaries and will only pay the national team players salaries. Thus the league can have a high level soccer. And they can prevent a possible failure. PS: I'm here only looking for advice about this question, I know we have months, but I want to be ready.--SirEdimon (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Liga Leumit
Sorry to re-hash an old topic of conversation, but the Israel Football Association (IFA) refers to the Premier League and Liga Leumit as professional leagues. It would be a bizarre thing to state that the leagues are "fully professional" in Hebrew. This is more Wikipedia semantics than anything else. In an effort not to create an edit war, can we please weigh in on this issue?

Ahead of the 2011/12 season, the IFA decided to restructure the three top tiers to go from 3 professional leagues to two. Growing the top two divisions and abandoning the 3rd tier for a regional system. As such, the two should be recognized by Wiki as professional as that is how the IFA defines them. -NYC2TLV (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * What reliable sources are you using to verify your claims? GiantSnowman 09:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Having lived in Israel for several years and attended Liga Leumit games, I really cannot see how clubs in the division can be fully professional. Last season only five of the sixteen clubs had average gates of over 400. I wouldn't be surprised if the "professional" here actually referred to the fact that the players receive some form of payment (i.e. part-timers). Number   5  7  12:26, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Your link did not work. Regardless of average attendance, many people know that Israeli football on the whole is not for turning a profit. Many of the clubs are owned by people who use the club either as a status symbol etc. Second, your personal experience attending Liga Leumit matches has no actual bearing on whether they are professional or not. -NYC2TLV (talk) 04:48, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Try this one. Many people also know that British football as a whole is not for turning a profit. However, there are reasonable limits as to sustaining professional football and with six clubs averaging under 300 (!), I just can't see it. My personal experience is from attending Leumit games with crowds of below 100, and having attended similar level matches in several other countries I know that all other clubs with similar crowds have been semi-pro at best. Number   5  7  11:37, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Again your link did not work. I hate to sound like a broken record, but your personal experience attending a game a number of years ago is not proof of anything when it comes to Wikipedia where you must bring sources. I am just looking to be fair since a source from the IFA has been given and no one has come with proof to disprove the IFA's stance. So please keep the discussion academic and not about personal experiences during study abroad programs. -NYC2TLV (talk) 21:11, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Study abroad programmes? Sorry, never been on one. I've also been to more than "a game a number of years ago". I suggest sticking to the topic rather than making obtuse personal attacks. But back to the subject in hand, I suspect a problem is that this may be one of the cases where people do not differentiate between professional and semi-professional, hence the need to specifically state "fully professional". Number   5  7  22:22, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The fact that there appears to have been a major strike over pay would suggest it to be a pro league: . I cannot find anything anywhere that directly talks about it being semi-pro or professional, due to having no knowledge of Hebrew, although also suggests it to be fully pro (taken from an AfD on a footballer who plays in the second tier). Lukeno94 (talk) 10:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Request/Proposal: Add K League to the list.
Recently the former K-League of South Korea split into 2 leagues... the K League Classic which is now the tier 1 league and the K League which is the 2nd tier of South Korean football. Their is promotion/relegation between the two leagues. I can not prove it now but hopefully someone can take the time to do some research to prove that the new K League is fully-professional. Cheers. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 06:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Irish leagues
Just noticed the Irish leagues are not present anywhere in this list at the moment, and there's no active discussion about them. The name of the governing body suggests a fully-pro league: but can someone find any sources proving or disproving this? Lukeno94 (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Neither of them are fully-pro. There is currently a discussion here regarding them though. Adam4267 (talk) 22:32, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The Irish Leagues are definitely nor fully-professional. GiantSnowman 22:51, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

GFA League First Division
First division league of Gambia. Can't find anything to indicate if it is or isn't fully professional. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Nothing definitive at http://www.gambiafa.com/league/gfa-first-division-team.html or http://www.gambiafa.com/the-gfa/gfa-history.html. However, if the standard is to be paid enough to sustain themselves, I'm assuming that Gambian standard of living may be low enough that a small salary would go a long way. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I intend to remove Chilean Primera B from list of fully professional leagues
This league appears to have been added despite lacking any consensus to do so; the only discussion I can find in archives here is this. The cite on the project page is, in any event, both vague and primary, and it is not clear that the vague requirement listed even apply to this league. If anyone disagrees, could you please provide argument and sourcing to explain how this league is fully professional? --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No complaints here, I wasn't convinced about either league being fully pro in the first place. ★ Bald Zebra ★ talk 07:53, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Croatia 1st women's
Please see Talk:Croatian First League (women's football). --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 12:13, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Dead links
I was hoping to get some opinions on the value of dead links as sources. Obviously they should be replaced with functional ones wherever possible, but failing that what happens with leagues whose entries were once reliably sourced, but the links in question have gone dead? Specifically, I'm thinking about the Icelandic league which was recently removed from the list of non-fully-pro top flights. The source listed with it once pointed to an article by the Iceland Tourist Board describing the league as semi-pro. It seems silly to me to have to remove the list, when the only thing that's changed is the structure of the tourist board website. Your thought? Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:49, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Try the Wayback Machine for an archived link. Failing that, a league being listed as "not fully-pro" is far less important than finding a reliable source which proves it is fully-pro - after all, the burden is on those wanting to demonstrate notability. GiantSnowman 00:55, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip. I've reinstated the Icelandic league, but for argument's sake let's say it didn't work, and the dead link confirmed the league as fully pro. I guess the key question is to what extent is accessibility in web sources, necessary to reliability. I mean, print sources are deemed perfectly acceptable even though they're not always readily available to all members of the community. The same applies to web sources requiring a subscription. Surely there's some analogy to dead links to be made there. Sir Sputnik (talk) 01:09, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Scottish Premier League
Article in The Herald (Glasgow) this month: "Financial concerns will dictate decisions, though, and Herald Sport also understands that one other SPL club has considered maintaining a small core of full-time professionals but otherwise employing part-time players." 176.253.108.55 (talk) 20:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * A newspaper "understanding" something does not make it true - in fact, given British media, it is probably the opposite. GiantSnowman 12:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:TRUTH is not the barometer for inclusion, as you are aware. 90.205.197.52 (talk) 11:32, 29 March 2013 (UTC)