Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

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WikiProject Football was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 3 March 2008.

This WikiProject was featured on the WikiProject report at the Signpost on 9 July 2012.

On 4 August 2022, it was proposed that this page be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Association football. The result of the discussion was not moved.

Multiple positions in infobox

This was discussed previously, but for players with multiple positions in the infobox, how should they be listed? The currently suggested method is to use commas, though visually I think {{hlist}} provides a clearer/cleaner output visually (see WP:FLATLIST and MOS:HLIST). For example see Konrad Laimer and Alexis Saelemaekers. Thoughts? S.A. Julio (talk) 19:54, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Either way is fine, as long as we're consistent. Nehme1499 (talk) 20:08, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Commas more established, and my preference. Giant Snowman 20:10, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe more established for this infobox, but {{hlist}}/{{flatlist}} are used widely across other infoboxes. For example it is standard to use for the occupation in {{Infobox person}}. And with some template coding on {{infobox football biography}}, nothing would necessarily even need to be changed on articles. S.A. Julio (talk) 20:26, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In which case I'm happy to go with the flow, if it can be automatically coded. Giant Snowman 22:10, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Nehme1499 and GiantSnowman: I've gone ahead and created Module:Footballer positions, intended for use on {{Infobox football biography}}. It will automatically convert comma, slash, or <br> to instead use {{hlist}}, with only the first position listed in capitalised. It also allows editors to use shorthand, adds links where there are none, and corrects linking mistakes (i.e. [[Goalkeeper]] → [[Goalkeeper (association football)|Goalkeeper]]).

Input	Output
`[[Goalkeeper]]`	Goalkeeper
`[[Midfielder]], [[Centre forward]]`	Midfielder centre forward
`[[Right-back]] / Defensive Midfielder`	Right-back defensive midfielder
`Attacking midfielder<br>[[Right winger]]`	Attacking midfielder right winger
`DF`	Defender
`FB, RW`	Full-back right winger
`DM, AM / CF`	Defensive midfielder attacking midfielder centre-forward

Would anyone have an issue with me implementing this on the footballer infobox? S.A. Julio (talk) 03:11, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. Nehme1499 (talk) 03:19, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fantastic SAJ! --SuperJew (talk) 08:51, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, really good work! Giant Snowman 18:48, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Kaffet i halsen (talk) 18:58, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After a decent amount of testing, I went ahead and implemented the change to {{Infobox football biography}}. It should correctly handle all sorts of inputs, even with really poor formatting. However, please let me know if anyone notices any issues the change has caused. S.A. Julio (talk) 07:30, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks, good work on this, much appreciated. Giant Snowman 11:18, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@S.A. Julio: Nice work. One suggestion: Would it possible to preserve spaces in (e.g.) "right back" instead of making every instance "right-back" with the hyphen? Having the space is intended at (e.g.) Emily Fox as the typical US spelling. Thanks in advance. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 23:32, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are also a couple others that maybe don't need to be changed like outside back and right wingback which output as full-back and right wing-back respectively. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 23:40, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Hameltion: Ah thanks, the module is supposed to preserve spaces/dashes (or lack thereof) but there was a small mistake in the logic, should be fixed now. Regarding "outside back", is this a very common term? I've only ever seen "full back" used, which seems the clearest. S.A. Julio (talk) 01:55, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, looks good. Yes, outside back is a common term in the US. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 02:07, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Substitute appearances for player lists

Do we think the substitute appearances are necessary for player lists (e.g. in List of Arsenal F.C. players), or should just the apps/goals be there? (e.g. in List of Nottingham Forest F.C. players) FastCube (talk) 12:27, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just the total apps and goals. Giant Snowman 11:03, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything wrong with including sub appearances. It gives the reader more information about how the player was typically used by the club. Assuming it's reliably sourced, it should be fine. – Pee Jay 16:29, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTSTATS applies, however. Giant Snowman 11:18, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

2 extra columns is hardly excessive. So as long as it is made clear what the columns mean then I'd say it doesn't breach NOTSTATS. Spike 'em (talk) 11:48, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Player notability

If the WPN:FOOTY player notability section has been superseded by Wikipedia:Notability (sports), then why isn't there a new player notability on there? FastCube (talk) 12:44, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because any criteria based solely off appearances were removed, and the fallback option is to use WP:GNG in undefined cases. There would need to be consensus formed that any new guideline gives a near certain pass of GNG as a starting point. Spike 'em (talk) 12:51, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We've always used WP:BASIC and WP:GNG, the overriding policy of NFOOTY was just stripped. So you should just ignore that old policy stuff now. Govvy (talk) 17:23, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There should be a middle ground, at least for players with a considerable number of international appearances. Svartner (talk) 09:29, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is always WP:COMMONSENSE. Giant Snowman 11:03, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GiantSnowman: What is an example of comon sense? ⋆｡˚꒰ঌ Clara A. Djalim ໒꒱˚｡⋆ 12:26, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A player with a good number of professional appearances in reputable leagues but who we can't find lots of SIGCOV because it's pre-internet age. Giant Snowman 18:25, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the written press at the time didn’t consider the player notable back then, they weren’t notable. It’s that simple. Moreover international appearances with say Tonga is not the same thing as international appearances with for instance Argentina. T v x1 09:37, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the written press at the time didn’t consider the player notable back then, they weren’t notable. It’s that simple. - TBF, I don't believe what GiantSnowman is saying is that players should be assumed to be notable in the explicitly provable absence of coverage. The point they are making is that a degree of common sense should be applied where it's quite likely that such coverage existed but it's hard to confirm, because it's offline/not archived. -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:00, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bingo. Giant Snowman 18:50, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stats in userspace indefinitely

Saw this, which was previously deleted here. What's the point of retaining it in userspace, especially when the creator has not edited it a single time in the two years since undeletion? Should it even have passed RFUD? Geschichte (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTWEBHOST. Giant Snowman 18:27, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Noni Madueke full name

An IP is edit warring at Noni Madueke with the formatting of the full name in the infobox, please can we get more eyes? Giant Snowman 19:41, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. There is no point on using formatting which makes no difference at all to the article. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 20:49, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discrepancy in international caps (Jordan)

With regards to these edits (my edit, my edit summary, their revert) and the related talk-page discussion: what is the appropriate course of action? @Rklingmann insists on only including official FIFA matches, which in theory makes sense. However, the Jordan FA player profiles list the following: total caps (151), FIFA caps (140), total goals (144).

It would be inaccurate to claim that Maysa Jbarah scored 144 goals in 140 caps, because the 144 goals correspond to the 151 caps. The general caps ranking also shows 144 goals in 151 caps. Therefore, we either show that Jbarah has 144 goals in 151 caps, or we don't include the statistic at all. Reporting 144 goals in 140 caps is mathematically incorrect. Nehme1499 (talk) 14:02, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Id be inclined to use 151 and have a note that 11 of these are not recognised by FIFA. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:34, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]