Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

Not to be confused with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American football, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football, or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canadian football.

Swedish club names

Hello, I have a question about the naming convention for Swedish football clubs in player articles. For example, in Zlatan Ibrahimović the club is listed as “Malmö FF”. Should all Swedish clubs (e.g., Kalmar FF, BK Häcken, IFK Göteborg) be displayed in full like this, in line with the format used for German clubs as per WP:KARLSRUHER (e.g., “1. FC Köln”)? I couldn’t find a dedicated style guideline for Swedish clubs. Can someone confirm the correct standard? Thank you! Eni.Sukthi.Durres (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

As far as I remember, Swedish names should be listed in full for grammatical reasons (similar to the German format). For example, it's either Trelleborgs FF or Trelleborg, not "Trelleborgs". Nehme1499 (talk) 18:55, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Nehme is correct, when piped it should be [[Djurgårdens IF Fotboll|Djurgården]] etc. GiantSnowman 18:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, @Nehme1499: & @GiantSnowman: for your input!

I understand your point about grammatical forms, but I was wondering if there is an official policy or naming guideline that confirms this — something equivalent to WP:KARLSRUHER (which covers German clubs).

I'm trying to find a formal reference on how Swedish club names (e.g. Malmö FF, BK Häcken, IFK Göteborg) should appear in player articles, so that it can be applied consistently across Wikipedia.

If anyone knows of an existing naming convention page or a past consensus discussion covering Swedish clubs, could you please share the link?

Thanks again for clarifying — I just want to make sure we follow a documented standard. Eni.Sukthi.Durres (talk) 19:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Pending the outcome of the discussion, if consensus is reached here, then use this and add it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Consensus. GiantSnowman 19:20, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I can only find this previous discussion mentioning Swedish club names. Nehme1499 (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Some aspects (some already mentioned):

1. Somewhat similar to Karlsuher SC and Olympique Lyonnais, the construction of club names in Swedish in the form something + abbreviation (Something FC) is possessive in Swedish and takes an "s" unless the thing it is named from ends with a vowel or "r". There are some cases where the place itself ends with "s" (Degerfors IF and Västerås SK most prominent now). This "s" is omitted when it is shortened. The "s"-rule does not apply with the opposite order abbreviation+ something (FC Something).
2. Depending on time period, some cases will be ambiguous when omitting the FC or equivalent: IFK Malmö—Malmö FF, Sandvikens AIK—Sandvikens IF, and GIF Sundsvall—IFK Sundsvall have all played in Allsvenskan roughly the same time; AFC Eskilstuna—IFK Eskilstuna and Västerås IK—Västerås SK at different times although the now minor clubs still exist.
3. The abbreviation is frequently left out in English (Djurgården, Elfsborg, Häcken, Malmö) and many names are unambiguous (Brommapojkarna, Djurgården, Elfsborg, Häcken, Hammarby, Mjällby, Öster, Örgryte, and Sirius to name a few). I would say from spot checks that clubs starting with IFK is more frequently keeping the abbreviation in English (e.g. IFK Gothenburg, IFK Norrköping). Also FF was, at least in Swedish, more frequently kept before.

There is no reason to have a policy saying all needs to be [article name]. Also, any Fotboll (Djurgårdens IF Fotboll) or a second abbreviation after another (Enköpings SK FK) can always be piped away in football contexts. Kaffet i halsen (talk) 01:43, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I also don't think we need to apply a uniform standard. As far as I can gather, Swedish people like to use the abbreviations even in speech, e.g. BK Häcken, so I tend to leave them in when writing about players who spent their careers in Sweden. However, for foreign players and people who played in a variety of countries I believe piping the links is better: [[BK Häcken|Häcken]]. There is one major exception, I have never seen IFK Göteborg referred to as just Göteborg (Gothenburg).

Lastly, we have a few "possessive" cases in Norway as well, Aalesunds FK and Egersunds IK, which are referred to as just Aalesund and Egersund. It's not strange that non-native editors pipe them as [[Egersunds IK|Egersunds]], so I just change it on sight. Geschichte (talk) 06:09, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

How Swedish people talks in speech is not guiding for how we write an encyclopaedia in English. Nevertheless, I don't find support for that Swedish people like to use abbreviations in speech-like written texts such as chants, tweets or articles and forum posts on svenskafans.com (supporter-driven per-team news and discussion outlet if any reader is not acquainted with football in Sweden). And yes, IFK Göteborg/IFK Gothenburg stands out (in both languages) being commonly referred with the IFK. In a while, I will try to sum up this discussion and will include Aalesund and Egersund in this. Kaffet i halsen (talk) 00:07, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Following this suggestion, I suggest add this explanatory text to Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Consensus#Naming conventions:

=== Sweden and Norway ===

1. For football clubs in Sweden, omit ending "s" in place names and alike when removing abbreviations. Names of clubs are often created with a place name with possessive "s" and the type of club, usually abbreviated. Östers IF is a idrottsförening (IF) from the neighbourhood Öster in Växjö. The abbreviation [is usually][may be] omitted in text and in infoboxes and the "s" is omitted when removing the abbreviation. Places ending with a vowel or "r" do usually not take this possessive "s". Places already ending with "s" does not need an extra "s"; some common such endings are are -ås, -fors, -hus and -näs. Write:
   • Djurgårdens IF Fotboll → [[Djurgårdens IF Fotboll|Djurgården]]
   • Östers IF → [[Östers IF|Öster]]
   • Trelleborgs FF → [[Trelleborgs FF|Trelleborg]] but
   • Akropolis IF → [[Akropolis IF|Akropolis]]
   • Degerfors IF → [[Degerfors IF|Degerfors]]
2. In Norway, the removal of "s" also applies to Aalesunds FK → [[Aalesunds FK|Aalesund]] and Egersunds IK → [[Egersunds IK|Egersund]].

Whether to use [is usually] or [may be], I think [is usually] is shown in my number 2 above, but it may easier to write [may be]. Kaffet i halsen (talk) 08:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Barry Cogan (footballer)

Barry Cogan (footballer) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 01:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Notability § Collapse the legacy NFOOTY criteria?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Notability § Collapse the legacy NFOOTY criteria?. 2pou (talk) 18:35, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Scorebar

Has anyone noticed this website? It might be related to Soccerway, as the player profiles' IDs are the same as Soccerway's old IDs (example: Scorebar, Soccerway). Furthermore, Scorebar seems to have all of Soccerway's original stats, while Soccerway (example) has yet to reinstate them. Nehme1499 (talk) 19:11, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I know that Soccerway was sold (hence why all the issues arose, with the new owners messing around) - perhaps Scorebar is the old owners' new venture? GiantSnowman 19:21, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

On their respective websites they show the same "bricks and mortar" contact address in Prague so they are certainly connected in some way ColchesterSid (talk) 08:43, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Fyi, I have just created {{Scorebar}}. Nehme1499 (talk) 13:22, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Chumphon Province Stadium

The article Chumphon Province Stadium has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged as Unreferenced for 10 years. No other language has a reliably sourced article from which to translate. A WP:BEFORE search reveals no reliable sources in English.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Bearian (talk) 03:01, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

@Bearian: Redirected to the club article section at Chumphon F.C.#Stadium and locations where it's mentioned. Left guide (talk) 06:06, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Bearian (talk) 09:45, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

US date format for players with US ties

@Sharky000 insists on changing the date format on Soony Saad's article to dmy, as opposed to mdy, despite the subject being an American national (who has played for the Lebanon national team). I argue that, according to MOS:DATETIES, Saad has "strong national ties" to the US; thus, the article should use the mdy date format throughout. On the other, Sharky insists that "his ties to USA are irrelevant" as he "is a Lebanese player".

Could I kindly get some thoughts on this, as I am one revert away from violating WP:3RR? Nehme1499 (talk) 02:16, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

He is born in USA, and despite his residency and ties, he has only played for Lebanon. This is why the “DD/MM/YY” and “footballer” parts of the article are the norm. It’s a widely accepted consensus that “MM/DD/YY” and “soccer player” are only used for American (or sometimes Canadian) players.

I suggest looking at Brandon Austin’s talk page, as a “disagreement” similar to this one recently took place, and all my points are pretty much there. yung SH4RK (talk) 03:23, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

There is no doubt at all that it should follow DMY (dd/mm/yyyy) format. I have no idea why another editor would insist on keeping American English and MDY after this player has regularly appeared for another national team. It is standard WP:FOOTY consensus and practice that MOS:ENGVAR follows the national team rather than the place of birth if the two are different. There are countless examples of this. You had it right when you initially made the edit. It should not have been reverted. Anwegmann (talk) 03:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

MOS:DATETIES and MOS:ENGVAR relate to English-speaking countries, which Lebanon is not. Saad's case differs from Brandon Austin as the former has one English-speaking nationality and one non-, while the latter has two English-speaking nationalities. Nehme1499 (talk) 11:27, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

What about Jordan Pefok and Malik Tillman? Both play for the USA, but one could argue that “they have 100% ties to Europe”. How come we can’t use DMY and “footballer” for them? yung SH4RK (talk) 20:07, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

I thought FOOTY consensus was that formatting / ENGVAR etc follows the player's "footballing" nationality. Hence Saad is Lebanese, and his article should follow the usual standards for that country. If this is DMY, then the header on the article should be changed to match. Spike 'em (talk) 09:28, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

If date ties are disputed, MOS:DATERET may be a relevant deciding factor. Left guide (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

He has no “national ties” to the United States. Unless you mean his place of residence and citizenship, if that’s what you mean, none of those two factors matter as far as FIFA is concerned. He is a “Lebanese player” by FIFA’s standard. yung SH4RK (talk) 04:47, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't have to follow FIFA standards. He was born and raised in the US, played in the MLS, and also played for the US national youth teams. These, to me, are "national ties" to the US. Of course, he is a former Lebanon national team player and, for most purposes on Wikipedia, is a Lebanese subject. However, as MOS:DATETIES and WP:ENGVAR talk about ties to English-speaking countries, the US is more relevant with regards to these two Wikipedia policies. Nehme1499 (talk) 13:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

MOS:DATETIES and MOS:DATERET pretty clearly say we should use MDY (the player has many strong ties to the US, and none to any other English-speaking country + the article has used MDY for years). The only reason not to follow the MOS here would be a local consensus. Can anyone point out an article where playing for the national team of a non-English-speaking country overrides the styles used in the English-speaking country of birth (or other strong ties)? I don't the think the Brandon Austin example above is totally applicable because that was deciding between 2 varieties of English, which is not the case here. Wburrow (talk) 15:26, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Also, even if we pretend Soony is 100% Lebanese with no ties to the US, we should still use MDY since the article was started with MDY. The style used in Lebanon is simply not relevant according to the MOS. Per MOS:DATETIES:

In articles without strong ties to a particular English-speaking country, the choice of date format ...

• is controlled by MOS:DATERET;
• is unrelated to the topic's ties to particular countries; and
• is independent of, and unrelated to, the national variety of English used in the article.

Wburrow (talk) 18:07, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@Wburrow

Giuseppe Rossi

Julián Araujo

Efraín Álvarez

Zion Suzuki

Esmir Bajraktarević

Aaron Herrera

Although it’s worth mentioning, there seems to actually be a long indirect dispute about this subject, because there are other player’s articles, that say they are born in the USA, but they represented a foreign national nationally, but also have their article in the MDY format, and some like Steven Beitashour are even called “soccer players”.

I failed to realize this isn’t a black or white issue, so I’m kind of leaning towards the MDY format, just because it was originally made like that, and there doesn’t seem to be a correct format in this situation. yung SH4RK (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Brandon Austin is the worse example you can give, the guy was born in England, lives in England, plays his football in England, everything about him is primarily British English, just because he played for US youth level is not a reason to change his formatting to MDY, or American English. That's is actually very bad on an editorial perspective. As for Soony Saad, on an editorial, it makes total sense to stick with American date and language formatting. Govvy (talk) 15:35, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Actually, to my understanding, what they are saying is, it is hypothetically correct in the case of Brandon Austin, but is incorrect in the case of players who represented a non English speaking nation. So either way Brandon Austin’s article format is correct, regardless of what side everyone on the talk page here is on. Thats if I’m understanding everyone here correctly, although feel free to correct me if I’m misrepresenting something. yung SH4RK (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

On a related note: should the lead say "footballer" or "soccer player"? Nehme1499 (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

"Soccer player" - same basic reasoning as above: the player has strong ties to 2 countries, but only one of them is English-speaking, so we should be using the WP:ENGVAR of the English-speaking country. Wburrow (talk) 18:47, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

“Soccer player” is completely inconsistent. There is no other US-born soccer player, who represents another team (excluding Canadian or Australian), that is not referred to as a “footballer”. yung SH4RK (talk) 19:52, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Because if we use that logic, someone like Yunus Musah would be considered an “American footballer”, and that also wouldn’t make any sense. Same things goes for Charlie Kelman yung SH4RK (talk) 19:55, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Musah and Kelman played for two English-speaking countries. Again, these are not relevant examples. Nehme1499 (talk) 19:57, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes was just about to retract that argument. You are right on that. yung SH4RK (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

This is a strange problem with many leads on articles, so and so (born #date) is a duel-citizen should be used on the lead straight away. Instead none of you are using that standardise formatting which should be the norm. Govvy (talk) 11:02, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL WC fixtures

Should matches we know no details about (dates, venues, opponents) at the forthcoming World Cup be added to lists of national teams forthcoming fixtures? I've just removed a couple of sets, but they seem quite widespread. Should we add 3 blank fixtures for each qualified team, or wait until the draw has taken place? Spike 'em (talk) 13:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd say wait until the draw takes place. Clog Wolf _Howl 14:07, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

wait until the draw takes place. What's the rush for speculative information? Matilda Maniac (talk) 15:04, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I really can't see the point of adding three blank fixtures -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:11, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

The Croatia article (one of the ones Spike edited) looked stupid with three matches listed with no confirmed opponents, no confirmed dates other than very broad ranges, and not even a confirmed country in which they would be taking place! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:14, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Still there on Brazil and Argentina amongst others (I think the same details are being copied around as they all have the same home / away split) Spike 'em (talk) 15:48, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Agree with above, no need for that, we can wait. Kante4 (talk) 16:02, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

@HalfOfAnOrange: Please see this. Kante4 (talk) 16:03, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Alright yeah, we can leave it as comments until the draw happens. HalfOfAnOrange (talk) 16:07, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

And do people have simlar view on the final of the UEFA qualifiers that have just been drawn? I had a look at a couple of teams in previous competitions, and knock-out games were not added until the team won the previous fixture, which I think should be the case here too. Spike 'em (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

According to FIFA the defeated semi-finalists will be playing a friendly against each other. See page 3, Section 5 of the Draw Procedures. OblongBubbles (talk) 15:26, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Pity no mention of this has been made in the edit history / articles themselves. Spike 'em (talk) 16:00, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

References

Category:American expatriate men's soccer players in Canada

Is Category:American expatriate men's soccer players in Canada overkill? I think it's too narrow and I'm sure similar have been deleted before. GiantSnowman 19:04, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Also Category:American expatriate men's soccer players in Germany. GiantSnowman 19:07, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I've often found that the weakest link for appropriately categorizing people where things start straying from P&Gs is WP:CAAP#D:

Defining – Biographical articles should be categorized by defining characteristics. As a rule of thumb for main biographies this includes the reason(s) for the person's notability; i.e., the characteristics the person is best known for.

So, do reliable sources typically consider these to be defining traits for these players? Left guide (talk) 19:39, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Would an article like https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1827680/2020/05/24/american-players-germany-pulisic-reyna/ be an indication? Robby.is.on (talk) 21:25, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

No, players playing abroad in a specific country is not defining. GiantSnowman 21:49, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Unreferenced football biographies

Hi. I write from WP:WikiProject Unreferenced articles, where we're currently holding a drive to reduce the backlog of completely unreferenced articles. One of our goals is to get the number of unreferenced BLPs to zero, and the backlog now stands at just over a hundred. About 90% of those are biographies of football players, many of them one line stubs, and I was hoping that this project might be able to help out getting them referenced or otherwise dealt with over the course of the last third of the drive. The list is available at this PetScan query; I haven't given it below due to its length. Thanks for your help! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:05, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Someone must've done another round of external links removal because we were down to zero for quite a while. Hack (talk) 12:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

All of the unreferenced ones seem to be players from non-English speaking countries, so it would probably rely on editors familiar with sources available in the relevant languages -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:46, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like Sir Sputnik replaced a bunch of unreliable links with {{cn}} in October. Spike 'em (talk) 14:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

First N. Last N (soccer, born XXXX) or (footballer, born XXX)

For players born internationally (outside the USA/CAN region), with extremely common names, that were either raised locally, play in local leagues, but have not played for the US or Canada at all or recently, must they have “soccer” in the article title or “footballer”? This question is referring to players like Mamadi Camara (soccer, born 1995), who played locally, but had never played for Canada, but a few editors (@RedPatch, @HurricaneZeta, and @SilverLocust) have insisted in keeping it “soccer”. yung SH4RK (talk) 21:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

For the Camara article, I was just performing the requested technical move. For that, you could open an RM to decide on a new title. Z E T A^C 21:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

As he is Guinean, he should be 'footballer', to match his place in Category:Guinean men's footballers. GiantSnowman 21:44, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

He's also part of Category:Canadian men's soccer players, though. Nehme1499 (talk) 21:47, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

But lede says 'Guinean professional footballer'. GiantSnowman 21:49, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

It probably shouldn't though. He has dual citizenship, and hasn't played for either country (assuming the article is accurate, and not missing key information). This seems like a clear cut case where nationality should be excluded from the lead. For WP:ENGVAR, on the other hand, the standard is strong national ties to an English speaking country, which Camara definitely has to Canada, so it should read "...Camara is a professional soccer player..." Sir Sputnik (talk) 01:07, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Like we said in regards to Camara, a RM request put it there. I've never been against putting it to footballer, but since a RM moved it there, it requires one to move it somewhere else, not a unilateral move because the RM opted against it, for whatever the reason was years ago. As we said, you're more than welcome to start a new RM, instead of just saying we're being unreasonable. You haven't though. Also, like I also mentioned previously, Guinea doesn't allow dual citizenship, which adds a wrinkle to the debate if he has Canadian citizenship, he technically wouldn't have Guinea citizenship. RedPatch (talk) 03:05, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe her is unambiguously Guinean as you stated in the hidden text. You need to gain consensus to change the article once you've been challenged on it. Spike 'em (talk) 08:58, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the refs in the article (of those that still work): 6 call him Canadian (including one where he self identifies as Canadian, and another stating he has Canadian citizenship), 1 says Guinean- Canadian and none Guinean. 3 state he was born in Guinea, but not where, and at least one that he was born in Montreal. MOS:NATIONALITY says to mention the nationality for which the person is notable, which in this case is clearly Canadian. Spike 'em (talk) 11:29, 21 November 2025 (UTC)