Strange edits

If you see edits from a TA like this - mainly changing position, but I've also noticed adding unref height and YOB to the short description - let me know. This is a notorious sock who has been blocked and should be reverted on sight per WP:DENY. They also edit wrestling articles. GiantSnowman 16:25, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Oh and they also add the 'current sport transaction' tag to articles. GiantSnowman 18:20, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman - is this one a possible example? Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 18:31, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes those kind of edits, but I don't think that it's the same editor. GiantSnowman 20:10, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

A good example for what to look for is ~2026-45497-07 (talk · contribs). GiantSnowman 17:37, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

I am confident that this is one. As for my first edit in this section, I didn't pay attention to the mobile tags after each edit made. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 19:38, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

100% correct, thanks! GiantSnowman 20:15, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

Proposing a new task force Asia task force

Hiii! I would like to propose a new task force under WikiProject Football, which will be known as the Asia Task Force.

Currently, we have country-specific task forces for Japan, South Korea, India, and Iran, but there isn't a centralized location for broader continental topics. The proposed task force would cover Asian nations that do not have their own dedicated task forces. Also, it would include, but not be limited to, Asian football tournaments and competitions, as well as players (maybe?). This structure would be similar to the Africa task force.

What are your thoughts? — Raihanur (talk) 14:33, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Fully agree. Football has taken ground in Asia with several footballing powers such as the KSA, Qatar, Japan, the ROK, Iran. Even the DPRK has had notable results in youth women’s football. It deserves a separate task force. Wikipediæ philosophia (talk) 14:36, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

I'd be happy with this. I sometimes follow Singaporean and Indonesian football myself. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 08:39, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

I would gladly support this. More than willing to vote this into existence. RollonLaurent (talk) 08:13, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Country + league compound

I know this might be a bit excessive in terms of "nitpicking" a sentence, but what do you think about writing "Spanish La Liga" or "Italian Serie A" or "German Bundesliga" in the intros or storylines? Should it be avoided? Or if written, should it be removed?

I'm starting this thread because I've seen several edits removing the country before the league from @ST MADG*85, and I've tried to understand their reasonings for removing these "pet peeves" (or something like that) but as I couldn't. As I said to them, maybe I'm missing a point... BRDude⁷⁰ (talk) 21:55, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

Here are the major European top-flight leagues in alphabetical order: Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League, Primeira Liga, Serie A. None of the aforementioned leagues' official names include their country of origin.

Per WP:CONCISE, we should avoid pleonasms. Writing 'Spanish La Liga' is a double redundancy. First, it creates a bilingual 'the the' error ('the Spanish The League'). Second, as documented in linguistic error tracking and practiced by major style guides like The Guardian, adding a geographic adjective to a globally unique proper trademark is unnecessary clutter. Mainstream coverage from the BBC and The Times refers to it strictly as 'La Liga' or 'LaLiga'." ST MADG*85 (talk) 23:20, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

No https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/spanish-la-liga. Brian Budd's ghost (talk) 18:24, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

We are not bound by any other media's style guide; English is not a prescriptive language, and the BBC is not the arbiter. We do not have to put full stops in "F.B.I." or "N.F.L." because The New Yorker demands it. The BBC literally lists its league tables with nationalities for the leagues , which shows that it's not even universal policy for them. MOS:VAR says that any optional style should be left as is, and mass changes are unhelpful; "to each their own". Unknown Temptation (talk) 11:15, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Per WP:FOOTY consensus and WP:CONCISE, we should avoid adding redundant geographic modifiers to unique, globally recognised proper nouns. Just as our main encyclopedia articles are located at Premier League, Bundesliga, and Serie A without national prefixes, our article prose should mirror that clean styling. Outlets like the BBC demonstrate that terms like 'German Bundesliga' or 'French Ligue 1' are redundant pleonasms that add unnecessary clutter for our readers."

How does the BBC demonstrate that?--Brian Budd's ghost (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

• This came up only the other week. I think it is certainly valid if there is the potential for confusion. If, for example, an article says that a player plays for Audax Italiano in the Liga de Primera, how many casual readers are going to know what country that refers to? This particularly applies if a player is playing in a country other than the one of their own nationality -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:22, 19 August 2026 (UTC)
• Just seen this on Robin Peter. The rationale for this mass editing is flawed. I was told that the name of the league isn't "Dutch Eerste Divisie", but that was never claimed in the text. "Dutch" was used as an adjective for "Eerste Divisie", a proper noun that was linked separately from the word "Dutch". This is like saying "the Dutchman Virgil can Dijk" is implying his first name is "Dutchman". I've had the same discussion about the same user before. I'm not a fan of making rapid edits across loads of articles, unless they are based on fixed Wikipedia policy, such as no curly speech marks MOS:QUOTE. I don't know how many users are aware of something that is set in stone, which is MOS:VAR Unknown Temptation (talk) 09:36, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

  Agreed. I honestly think blindly removing countries without context is far from the better output... Example: removing "Spanish" from Segunda División in case of foreign players would be confusing, as there is Uruguayan Segunda División as well (and the others such as Venezuelan Segunda División or Chilean Segunda División, previously named like this). Just because the Spanish league might be WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, this may border in some kind of "eurocentrism"...

  An example: a German player moves to a Spanish league (just like Benedikt Gimber did today) and we can't say that he moved to the "Spanish Segunda División" or the "Spanish La Liga", linking only the division? This sounds strange to me. BRDude⁷⁰ (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

  Sometimes when a club might not be obvious I write "plays for Spanish club XYZ in LA Liga" especially for a player in their non native league. I think that is better because it is clear that it's not an incorrect name of the league (ie. Spanish La Liga). RedPatch (talk) 23:41, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

  "Exactly, RedPatch—you’ve hit the nail on the head. Writing 'Spanish La Liga' is poor form because it implies 'Spanish' is part of the proper noun. Attaching the nationality to the context of the club or the country instead (e.g., 'Spanish club XYZ' or 'in La Liga') is much cleaner.

  That is precisely why 'Dutch Eerste Divisie' should be avoided here. The sentence on the Robin Peter page already beautifully applies your exact logic:'...he took a job at FC Emmen in the Eerste Divisie in the Netherlands.'

  Because the sentence already explicitly tells the reader the move is 'in the Netherlands', adding 'Dutch' right before the league name is both linguistically redundant and creates the exact clunky phrasing we want to avoid. The current text already provides perfect clarity without the modifier." ST MADG*85 (talk) 23:58, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

  I agree that RedPatch's way of explaining the nationality is better, but I don't think we need a rule about it. I don't think using a nationality adjective with the name of the league implies that the adjective is part of the name. Brian Budd's ghost (talk) 18:19, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

  I don't think 'German Bundesliga' or 'English Premier League' is good writing, but something like 'Italian Series A' might be, given that there are multiple Serie As (yes I know there are a few Bundesligas, but I think it's obvious from context)... GiantSnowman 18:27, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

  From a consistency/MOS perspective, my concern is simply that we apply the same standard across leagues. If “German Bundesliga” and “English Premier League” are considered unnecessary because the context already makes the nationality clear, then it seems odd for “Italian Serie A” to be treated differently unless we have a specific guideline or consensus supporting that exception.

  Even though multiple Serie As exist, the top‑flight Italian league is overwhelmingly the primary referent in football articles, so the ambiguity is usually minimal. ST MADG*85 (talk) 20:58, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

  I agree, there is no need to add the country in front of the league name. Nehme1499 (talk) 21:39, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

Please remember that Wikipedia is for everyone in the world, not just current, well-informed fans of the game. DO NOT assume that all readers will know what countries named leagues belong to. Write for casual readers too. HiLo48 (talk) 01:34, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Why write French Ligue 1 when it's the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? If the average reader can't infer that the Ligue 1 is French, then the article itself should be titled differently. For example, I would understand writing Ivorian Ligue 1, since Ligue 1 (Ivory Coast) uses the disambiguator "(Ivory Coast)". Also, I am not opposed to writing something like "he moved to France, joining Ligue 1 side X", or something similar as suggested above. Nehme1499 (talk) 01:47, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:FIFA Forward Enterprise#Requested move 20 August 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:FIFA Forward Enterprise#Requested move 20 August 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 12:43, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Bobby Pointon stats

Bobby Pointon - Soccerbase says 98 league games (99 after tonight's match) - the club says on social media that tonight is his 100th league game? Who is correct? GiantSnowman 19:23, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

It would seem that the club are counting his play-off appearance last season as a league appearance. EchetusXe 20:42, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Good spot, thanks! GiantSnowman 21:02, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

William Oakley (footballer) Something strange! (section Early life)

I draw to wider attention that it appears that the information I added on his football for Shrewsbury School and on the name of his Oxford college (Christ Church) and senior degree from it, while visible in "Edit" format, doesn't show on the finished page when out of Edit and in Read format. Is something causing the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) to be obscured at that point, making these details wrongly appear omitted or deleted?Cloptonson (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

How about now? GiantSnowman 19:47, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. It is fully visible now.Cloptonson (talk) 20:07, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

There was an error in a ref tag, see this fix, that caused the issue. GiantSnowman 20:55, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Built an interactive map of ~250,000 footballers by birthplace — all sourced from Wikidata

Hi all — I built a map that plots association football players (Q937857) by their birthplace, pulling entirely from Wikidata. It's at ~250,000 players and 33.000 locations, filterable by nationality, gender, birth year and notability (based on language sites).

Reasons I'm sharing here rather than just in football communities:

1) It's a nice showcase of what the data makes possible, and 2) It doubles as a data-quality lens — you can immediately see where birthplaces are missing, mislocated, or where coordinates look off. If people spot gaps, that's feedback I can feed back into improving queries (and it might point to items worth fixing). 3) Fun fact: Albert Camus, Sean Connery and Viktor Orban are some of the association football players (Q937857) with highest notability (based on language sites)

Happy to share the SPARQL approach if anyone's curious how it's built. Feedback on data handling very welcome. Bogelund04 (talk) 19:40, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Please do not use LLM to post. GiantSnowman 19:44, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Homosexuality in English football#Requested move 16 August 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Homosexuality in English football#Requested move 16 August 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 09:21, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

Savona FBC

Could I get some assistance at Savona FBC dealing with an editor who refuses to accept that Transfermarkt is not considered reliable. Given their over the top response here to being asked not cite the website, they're clearly not going to listen to me on this. Sir Sputnik (talk) 22:14, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Question regarding that, do we still have any remaining articles out there using transfermarkt as a source? Also, I don't know if I could deal with that editor. There are other ways to destub articles besides forcibly adding squad lists and their response kind of makes me hesitant to confront directly. RollonLaurent (talk) 07:26, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Unconfirmed new redirect

Hi, there a temporarily account made a new redirect on 2026–27 UEFA Champions League league phase can you check that out because I can't do anything on that. And also there a draft was made. Thanks! Itsjuenyin (talk) 09:48, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

If the draft is ready to go, you can make a request at WP:RMT to move the draft to main space in place of the redirect. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:53, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

okay thanks Itsjuenyin (talk) 14:57, 26 August 2026 (UTC)