Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Notability

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

Contents 1 General 2 Clubs 3 Players 4 Managers 5 Referees 6 Single matches 7 Single-season reports 8 Venues

[edit] General

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

Nonetheless, let's not forget to improve already existing articles by the way. Julien Tuerlinckx 18:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be too much debate on here any more. Would anyone have any objections if I declared what we've got so far as consensus and put it on the project page? Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 13:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

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

[edit] Clubs

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

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

Definitely notable

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

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

Probably notable

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

• Semi-professional clubs that compete in the division below professional ones.
• Clubs that have contributed national team players (maybe a minimum number?)
• Clubs that a highly notable player (10+ caps for a top-level country, or 100+ appearances for a top-level club) has played for, for a significant period (e.g. one year or more).
• Clubs that regularly participate in their country's senior cup competition.

Definitely not notable

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

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

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

Not that I don't agree with you but I just noticed that the definitely not notable section misses some criteria. I remember having attended a 4th Brabant league game a few years ago, and this is the very last level in Belgian football. I had to pay some euros to enter the stadium and the club do/did participate to the senior cup competition (every club in Belgium takes part to the Belgian Cup). So for this particular country, the definitely not notable set is empty. But I just can't figure out another criterium at the moment. Julien Tuerlinckx 16:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

About the who decides which country is from which level I think this is no problem. For European teams, have a look at the UEFA ranking for club competitions: this hardly changes over the years (I mean the big 6 are still the same, and the bad countries too). We could however have a problem with non-EUR teams but I'm sure we can make an "objective" distinction between countries. I don't mean to give a too strict upper bound to the number of clubs for each country, we may have exceptions. And by the way, I don't get what you're gonna do with probably notable clubs. Should we include them or not? Or delete them or not? Thanx, Julien Tuerlinckx 09:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Even in Europe, trends change - for example far fewer clubs from Eastern Europe now make it to the later stages of the Champions League than they did in the old European Cup. I don't think it's a bad idea to have numbers and stature of the country as a rough guide - e.g. "There are 500 clubs in Moldova higher in the league than this one, so this probably means this club is not notable", but I think it is very hard to quantify it as a definite rule.

Re: Probable notability. Perhaps this is a better way of putting it: If a club meets any one of the "probable" criteria, then there is a weak case for it being retained. The more "probable" criteria it demands, the greater its claim to notability. If it only meets one, and cannot meet the others, then deletion or merging into another article is probably the best idea. What do you reckon? Qwghlm 11:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• I don't really agree with angelo (sorry). First of all the English teams from the first 8 levels already have an article, and I think these should not be deleted from wikipedia. For minor leagues, I admit that few know about 2nd division but isn't that what an encyclopaedia is all about? I would be quite interested to read articles for at least the first 2 levels in this country, who wouldn't? Even if you don't read them all, I think this should belong here. Anyway, generally the first two levels make only a few teams so I admit the 50/100 was maybe too much.
  • Don't worry! If club articles already exist, they should not be deleted at all. --Angelo 21:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

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

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

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

• In Italy, the pro divisions are from Serie A to Serie C2. --Angelo 21:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• In Belgium if being "pro" is having all its first squad players having no other job as footballer, 16/18 teams are pro in first div. and maybe 1/2 2nd div teams are also "pro". Julien Tuerlinckx 21:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Qwghlm's list looks ok but I'd change "definitely not notable" to "probably not notable" or something similar. I can think of a couple (but only a couple) of junior clubs that have produced enough international players to be interesting enough to have an article (Senrab, Wallsend Boys Club) so I'd prefer it if the way it was worded allowed for exceptions. Image:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 01:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

How about changing Qwghlm's "definitely not notable" to "probably not notable" as above, and inserting a phrase such as "The above list is not exhaustive, but exceptions should provide clear evidence for notability", or some phrase which makes it clear pub teams and the like are not notable. Oldelpaso 11:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

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

Opinions vary. An AfD for Liverpool's reserves ended with no consensus. My opinion is that mentioning the Eintracht Frankurt U23 team in the main Eintracht Frankfurt article and redirecting would be the way to go, others may disagree. Oldelpaso 20:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

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

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

[edit] Players

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

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

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

I'm quite Ok with that "standard". But I think a good start is to fill the red links in the following articles:

• the premier leagues top scorers or individual awards former winners for each country
• most capped players section for each national team
• noted players and current squad sections in clubs articles
• international competitions squad articles (like Football World Cup 1994 (squads))

Julien Tuerlinckx 18:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Julien about the need to make first articles of the players he suggested. I don't agree at all about the sentence "sportspeople who have played in a fully professional league". Guys, even Serie C2 is professional! According to me, we should accept just footballers who have been capped for any national team, plus the ones who have ever played in a top division of a "1st class" country. --Angelo 19:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • What do you mean by "first class" country? AlbinoMonkey ^(Talk) 01:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
• I think Qwghlm's rule of thumb of 100 appearances for former players is a sensible one Oldelpaso 19:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

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

[edit] Managers

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

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

[edit] Referees

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

I agree that most refs aren't notable, although I would say something like "has officiated several World Cup/European Championship/whatever matches". Although, if going by the criterion that the cricket project seems to use, almost any referee that has officiated in any large national team competition, is notable. See for example my AfD on an umpire that officiated one (1) game in 1885... -- Elisson • Talk 21:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh, I voted in that AfD (merge). While cricket umpires have a higher profile within their sport than football referees, that one was taking inclusionism to ludicrous levels. How about:

Has officiated in any of the following:

• Several international matches
• Several continental level matches (UEFA Champions League/Copa Libertadores etc.)
• A major domestic cup final

Oldelpaso 22:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems ok, although the last point is somewhat broad (define "major"?). Something that should almost automatically give notability to a referee, outside the other criteria mentioned, is if the ref is amongst the top five (ten?, two?) on the IFFHS vote on the world's best ref, which has been held every year since 1987. Or if he has appeared on the top ten list more than once (twice?), or something like that. -- Elisson • Talk 22:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The definition of "major" is possibly dependent on the outcome of criteria for "single matches" below. I've not heard of that vote before, interesting. Presumably most of those referees would fulfill more than one of the other criteria. Oldelpaso 22:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a little too stringent. On that basis Uriah Rennie would have to be deleted, but surely enough people have heard of him (and cursed his name) to warrant an article (the current one could do with expansion, however). I'd suggest that refereeing for one or more seasons at the highest level of a top seeded nation should also be included in the list. --Daduzi ^talk 22:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to be convinced, but can't help but feel that in many cases an article about a referee would be a stub which is unexpandable due to lack of verifiable, reliable sources, other than trivia of dubious encyclopedic value such as average yellow cards per match. Looking at some Premier League programmes I have lying around I see a few names I'd put in that category, e.g. Andre Marriner (who?). So I suppose I'd suggest a longer period than one or two seasons. I'd be happy if somebody ended up proving me wrong by making a referee stub into (say) a good or featured article. Oldelpaso 23:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I think basic biographical information (place of birth, family, route into refereeing, career progression) should be possible to dig up. Then as to career details, notable matches refereed and controversial decisions would be the obvious candidates. Basically your average premiership referee should be seen in much the same way as your average premiership footballer, and have the same sort of information included in their articles. Few of them will be GA or FA candidates (though Graham Poll's up for GA), but equally few bog standard premiership player articles will be. That doesn't mean there's not information that could be included, and would be useful to readers, however. Most Premiership refs have had acres of column inches dedicated to them in the national press, there's got to be some verifiable and useful stuff out there. Thinking about it it might be worth hitting the guys at The Referee Forum up and trying to recruit them into working on the articles. --Daduzi ^talk 00:57, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single matches

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

I would add the knock-out matches for WC qual too (i.e. matches after which a team qualifies for WC). Julien Tuerlinckx 09:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think WC qualifying playoffs are particularly notable, they should probably just be included in brief in the main article for the relevant WC qualifying tournament. Qwghlm 09:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

OK. Maybe we can just ask that a match should have been attended by a minimum people (50,000?) and that this match has a special meaning (e.g. every home milan game has more than 50,000 so it should be a special game for milan as a milan-inter that ended in a 3-3 or whose winner also won the italian championship or something). Maybe the "minimum people" should be a percentage of the stadium capacity (90%?). Julien Tuerlinckx 07:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Nah, having a minimum attendance feels wrong. Very special matches can be played in front of relatively few people, as the notability in the match very, very seldom has to do with the actual attendance, but with what happens in the match and what relevance it has to others. -- Elisson • Talk 16:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The majority of matches should fall under the scope of [[Season in country football]]. Oldelpaso 11:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, every match should be examinated case by case. You know, there cannot be any static way to say "hey, this match surely deserves an article". The Game of the Century for example is quite reasonable, but it was just a semi-final match of a World Cup. And, what about Argentina-England 2-1 at the 1986 World Cup? It was just a quarter-final! That's all, folks --Angelo 17:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single-season reports

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

They don't really fall under any of the direct categories in WP:NOT, and it would be difficult to merge them either with West Ham United F.C. or "xxxx-xxxx in English football" articles. As they stand, I'm not too inclined to delete - the articles are factual and NPOV, West Ham United are a notable club, and these articles don't needlessly clutter any high-level categories. Also, there are other club-by-season articles out there - e.g. Rangers_F.C._season_2002-03. But there are lots of the West Ham ones - a possible option may be to merge the articles into decades or periods of five years. Qwghlm 00:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Merging into decade-wise, or five year-period, articles is a good idea and should be applied to all of these season-wise club articles, IMO. -- Elisson • Talk 00:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

And possibly, let's include this kind of articles just for very notable teams. I don't think it would be a nice idea to have an article about, for example, A.S. Pizzighettone 2005-2006 (with all the respect possible for A.S. Pizzighettone, a minor Italian Serie C1 team). I hope you understand ;) --Angelo 17:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venues