Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues/Archive 32

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Help with notability of a draft

Found this at AfC and it's getting stale - does Draft:Giacomo Ratto pass WP:GNG? He fails WP:NFOOTY (Greek D3 appearance was after they were no longer professional) but has sustained some press coverage in Italy for having a truly global career, albeit for less than notable teams, and I'm not sure how to classify the coverage/which foreign language sources would pass WP:GNG. I would reject this for not being a notable enough footballer, but would like a second or third opinion. Thanks in advance! SportingFlyer T·C 04:12, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say 'notable' based on GNG but it's not crystal clear. GiantSnowman 08:55, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you - I've accepted from AfC since the basis is "will probably be kept" off your second opinion. SportingFlyer T·C 11:49, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Adding Nigeria National League

Hello,

Nigeria National League is a fully professional league side in Nigeria. I am willingly to assist in providing what is needed to add it to fully professional leagues on Wikipedia. It is second level of the Nigerian league system also playing in the body of Confederation of African Football. Lapablo (talk) 11:40, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a source to support this? Fenix down (talk) 12:28, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Costa Rica

Someone added the top-level league in Costa Rica to the page, but I don't see any consensus that the league is fully-professional (semi-pro clubs need professional licenses, but that doesn't mean they have no part-time players). I wanted to confirm here before I revert. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 16:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

• Looking at the source, the league simply requires professional licenses. There's nothing in the regulations that require teams to pay all of their players, but there's also nothing in the regulations on that at all, so that source isn't comprehensive. I'd support moving it back to "unknown." Costa Rica's a bit strange where I would say that players for Saprissa, Herediano and Alajuelense should probably pass WP:NFOOTY as those clubs are exceptionally well covered and even a reserve player might pass WP:GNG, but a player for Jicaral might not, and I don't think we're going to start making exceptions for specific clubs. SportingFlyer T·C 06:05, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree. I remember an article from a few years ago in which the player's union addressed the problems with club's paying players timely (or at all). The largest clubs like Saprissa and LDA were not part of the issue, but the majority of the clubs in the league were. I don't want to modify the FPL list to indicate which clubs in a semi-pro league might be fully-pro - that's going to be a nightmare. Jogurney (talk) 20:19, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

National Independent Soccer Association, again

Making a case here that the National Independent Soccer Association is a fully-professional soccer league. First off, the league was approved by the United States Soccer Federation for Division 3 sanctioning, which is professional according to the USSF (Division 1 to Division 3 are professional in the United States). Along with this, we have multiple independent sources stating for different teams entering the league that they will be part of a fully-professional league and are able to pay players on a full-time basis such as this, this, this, this, and this. this meanwhile has quotes such as "California United Strikers roster includes 16 players who became professionals when signing their contracts with the club." this article says "First, it is about getting everyone on the same page, especially the younger guys who are coming out of college and signing their first professional contract". Also, the league is entering the 2020 U.S. Open Cup in the same round as USL League One, a fully-professional league which is also designated as Division 3 along with NISA "Additionally, the Open Cup Committee determined that all eligible professional Division II and Division III sides will enter in the Second Round".

The league is obviously fully-professional and I think should be added to the list for FPL. ArsenalFan700 (talk) 05:23, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• I don't think it's clear yet. The U.S. only has two classifications - professional or amateur - see this blog post. This is a league which has played only 19 games in its history, so I don't think there's any reason why we can't wait and see what happens here. None of the sources provided are definitive, some of them may not be reliable sources, and it's not clear if playing in the league will automatically generate press coverage of the players.

It's also not clear to me the USL League One is "fully professional" either even with the sources provided on the FPL page - looking into it everyone is very proud of the distinction between professional and amateur, but I can't find anything which discusses whether the players are on contracts for the entire season, and I'm not sure all of the players in that league meet WP:GNG. This article suggested the USL had teams with season-only contracts up until 2018, which I'm not sure meets our standards, and that's a division above. Furthermore, the USL League One attendance is worse than single-A minor league baseball... So being sanctioned as a "professional league" may not be enough for us to put it on the FPL list. SportingFlyer T·C 09:03, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

If I may, attendance is in a very weird place right now with NISA. I've tried to watch it during the fall and there was a lot of strange factors. Oakland Roots SC has been pulling in fairly well and ended with an average above 5k which is better than almost all of the teams in the final NASL season. Detroit City FC had one home game (as an exhibition NISA club) and pulled in over 5k as well (team said it on its Twitter awhile back, I'll find it when its not Christmas Eve). But then look at something like Miami FC which was playing in a different venue from its historic, west Miami base or Atlanta SC which was also in a new venue / area. There was a lot going on.

If attendance factors into it and USL League One isn't even a confirmed "fully-professional" league then there probably can't ever be a third division U.S. league on this project. It will probably almost always be outdrawn by minor league baseball since that's more entrenched in the country. ColeTrain4EVER (talk) 17:02, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Attendance isn't a factor with FPL. The only factor is whether it's fully professional. Whether a player who plays before 200 fans in the USL for Swope Park Rangers is really more notable than a top-division amateur player who plays in front of tens of thousands of fans every game is debatable, but under FPL, we say he is. There are clubs in Central America in non-FPLs that attract more fans in one game than some USL teams do in an entire season. But under FPL, USL players are notable and players in, say, the Salvadoran league aren't. Whether that makes sense is another issue, but short of major revisions to FPL, there's no way around it. Smartyllama (talk) 21:24, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

So I guess that begs the question; "Is a NISA player, which is at the same level and has the same sanctioning as USL League 1, as notable as a USL player?" I think the answer is yes since they pass the "professional standard" set forth by USSF (aka This). Even if it is "provisional" that's still the standard NASL had in 2017 (and that league is still listed as a professional league in the Canadian section of this project). Looking at the sources used to claim League 1 as "fully professional" I see a few things: The U.S. Soccer release for the 2019 U.S. Open Cup talking about League 1 (there should be a 2020 version coming out next month), Two independent news sites (which User:ArsenalFan700 has provided), and a PDF of the league's own overview. While I believe NISA should be added into the list now, if U.S. Soccer mentions it as professional next month for the U.S. Open Cup would that be enough?

Also, Merry Christmas to you all and if you don't celebrate it Happy Holidays. ColeTrain4EVER (talk) 16:41, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Even though it's the same tier as USL League One (and I'm not sure all League One players receive WP:GNG coverage, the one I picked at random was Jorge Almaguer) I still don't think we can assume that based on the provided sources, as again, there is a clear distinction in the U.S. between "amateur" and "professional", and there's also a distinction between "professional" and "fully professional." In any case there's no hurry as the league is both almost brand new and doesn't restart for a few months, so I don't see a reason why we can't wait for more coverage. SportingFlyer T·C 03:40, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Also per Smartyllama's response, I don't think it makes sense players for say Deportivo Saprissa aren't automatically notable (how many of them fail WP:GNG?) but that players for FC Tucson automatically are (the players don't really get significant coverage) but here we are. I'd like to see a requirement for non-top flight leagues that demonstrate (almost) all players satisfy WP:GNG, but I think we'd sooner see a snowball in hell than that requirement enacted. SportingFlyer T·C 03:43, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

When players get paid is irrelevant to their professional status, what matters is how much they get paid. A player could get his entire yearly salary in a lump sum on January 1, or he could get 1/365 of that same yearly salary every day, or anywhere in between, and he'd still be just as professional. When I was in high school, our teachers had the choice to get their salary throughout the year, or to get more per paycheck but only during the school year. Their annual salaries were the same regardless, it was just a matter of when and how they got that money. Were teachers who took the former option any more "professional" than those who took the latter? Of course not. That's absurd. Professional status of athletes has to do with how much they get paid, not when they get their paychecks. If a hypothetical player were to get their entire $10 million annual salary in a lump sum on the first day of the season, would we say he's not a full professional? Of course not, that's completely ridiculous. Smartyllama (talk) 19:45, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

That's not the case at all - again, see the English National League, where the majority of teams are professional but there are some semi-professional teams, where not all players are full-time. "Fully professional" means all of the players are full time professionals. The fact some teams may only pay contracts during the season is evidence the teams are not necessarily fully professional. One NISA team paid between $1,400 and $2,000 a month for a period of a few months. [1] The $1,400/month, if calculated over 12 months, is below the U.S. poverty line. SportingFlyer T·C 20:55, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

The full context of that statement regarding salaries is as follows

"1904 FC, primarily owned by Senegalese soccer star Demba Ba, offered immediate work and higher salaries — between $1,400 and $2,000 per month, according to coach Alex Gontran — than the NPSL, which has a mix of pro and amateur players and is regarded as a notch lower in American soccer’s informal league pyramid. The contracts, however, aren’t guaranteed past this fall, and Gontran said he’ll look for more players, possibly with a higher payroll available, for the NISA’s longer spring season."

They aren't making $1,400 a month for 12 months, it was only for 3 months (aka the Fall season) and are going to be re-discussed come the Spring with "possibly" a higher payroll. Plus it mentions additional stipends for housing in that article. ColeTrain4EVER (talk) 21:27, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

@SportingFlyer: so you're saying if there's a league where every player makes at least six figures, payable in a lump sum on the first day of the season, that that is not an FPL merely because they have an unusual payroll calendar? That's ridiculous. Smartyllama (talk) 22:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Smartyllama: That's a complete misrepresentation of my argument. I'm saying teams that don't pay their players year-round are not likely to be fully professional, since the team can't afford to pay the player as a professional for the entire year. In NISA's case, a three or four month contract where the minimum is less than the poverty rate clearly violates our fully professional leagues rule, as the players can't be a full-time professional. Getting paid a decent The question we need to answer isn't "do all players get paid," but rather "do all players get paid enough to make a full time living playing football?" And there's no evidence that's the case for NISA (yet.) SportingFlyer T·C 23:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@SportingFlyer: You keep bringing up the poverty rate. Let's use that hypothetical from before to say they were getting paid $1,400 (the minimum) for 12 months. That would be $16,800. According to the Office of The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the poverty line in 2019 for a household of one was $12,490. For a household of two, it is $16,910 (so yes $110 under the line). Take into account housing stipends are not included in their contract total so that could be added on. I think it is also worth mentioning that there is a professional women's league within the United States whose minimum salary is below what San Diego is paying its players. ColeTrain4EVER (talk) 01:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Small update but USSF did recently release info in regards to the 2020 U.S. Open Cup tournament. "Growth in the three professional divisions over the last three years is a primary driver of the record number of competitors, as a combined 62 Division I, II and III teams will battle against Open Division clubs and each other for U.S. Soccer’s National Championship in 2020, eclipsing the previous high of 52 pro clubs set last year. The formation of the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA), a Division III professional league that presented eight teams by the Dec. 31 confirmation deadline, accounts for much of the increase." ColeTrain4EVER (talk) 16:29, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• So are the members of this project any closer to consensus that "fully professional" is an unworkable metric? Clearly everyone reading this right now must realize that, on the whole, we have no clue whether or not most leagues in the world are "fully professional", and that "fully professional" isn't even a "real thing", it's a made-up Wikipedia thing. Sources don't talk about most leagues as "fully pro", they just say "pro" or "semi-pro" or "amateur", and we all know that "pro" doesn't always mean "pro", because there are lots of examples of leagues that call themselves pro leagues but where the players actually aren't full-time, or they aren't paid a real full time wage. Can we try something else yet (like top flight leagues + some non-top-flight exceptions by consensus), or still not yet? Levivich 01:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• That's actually not the case at all. Almost every league will clearly into one category or another. The ones that do not aren't accepted. This one, for a plethora of reasons, does not clearly fall into a category. SportingFlyer T·C 06:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with SportingFlyer. A consensus has developed through years of discussions here about which leagues belong in the list (and for which time periods since levels of professionalism often change over time). When we can't find sufficient sourcing to justify including a league in the list, we remove it. It's not perfect (e.g., the Russian Professional Football League was in the list for over a year when it shouldn't have been), but I think the sources discussed here over the years typically justify our conclusions. Jogurney (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Italy's Serie A (women)

Just flagging that Italy's Serie A (women's football) perhaps could be considered a "fully professional" league for WP:NFOOTY purpose, starting from the 2020–21 season. Obviously there's still quite some time before the new season (if the current season could even be completed...), but if there are more recent updates on this issue please do share! Mightytotems (talk) 13:20, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

References

DR Congo

I propose that the Linafoot be moved from the non-professional category to the professional category. The source provided to prove that it is non-professional clearly states that there is professional football being played in the DR Congo. It highlights the flaws of the country's footballing business, but it says in the first line "Le "triste état" du football professionnel en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) contraste avec l'enthousiasme que suscite ce sport dans ce pays." Davidlofgren1996 (talk) 19:52, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

As we have gone through numerous times before, something being described as "professional" does not mean it is fully professional. GiantSnowman 17:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I would argue that it is a better source than a lot of the ones cited on the list of professional leagues page. This source talks about players renewing their contracts, implying that every player in the league has a contract. Davidlofgren1996 (talk) 18:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Lots of semi-pro/amateur non-league players also have contracts, see this which specifically refers to "the FA have issued guidance to what they refer to as 'semi-professional clubs' stating that all contracted players must be employees of the club and can not be self-employed". GiantSnowman 18:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

If this is the case, then I would imagine a good percentage of the leagues listed would not be fully professional. Davidlofgren1996 (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Possibly. But that's not the issue here - we're specifically talking about Linafoot. Is there a reliable source which confirms that the league is fully-professional? GiantSnowman 18:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

If a league being described as "professional" doesn't make it professional, nor the fact that all players are on contracts, what is the guideline for a "fully professional league"? Davidlofgren1996 (talk) 18:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Where every player in every team in the league is on a full-time, professional contract meaning it (or could be, ignoring sponsorship/advertisign etc.) is their sole job.

I am well aware that WP:WIKIPEDIAISNOTARELIABLESOURCE, but Linafoot Ligue 2 is described as being for "amateur" teams. If that is true then what happens when a team wins promotion to the Linafoot - does that team suddenly give every player a full-time job/salary? GiantSnowman 18:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

This source - from DR Congo and dated December 2019 - talks about amateur clubs in the Linafoot (if my translation is accurate). GiantSnowman 18:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

This from the same DR Congo website (January 2020), also talks about the amateur nature of the competition. GiantSnowman 18:59, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Come on GS, that first source is using Facebook comments as the basis of the article! The opinions of various Congolese Facebook users cannot be used as a reliable source! On top of this, it appears as though the comments are coming from TP Mazembe fans, or are at least comparing other clubs to Mazembe as 'amateur', using the term in a derogatory manor to highlight the superiority of Mazembe in the league.

The second source is from editors of the the website (a website of which I cannot see an official affiliation to either the DRC FA or the Linafoot!), and is merely describing the nature of the league, which I assume is similar to other "professional" African leagues, for which we do not even have reliable statistics.

If it means anything, this source from TP Mazembe describes how the league has a new sponsorship deal, which describes a payout of $100,000 to the winner of the league. Yes the source is awful, and yes there is text, it is just the same colour as the background. This is from the official TP Mazembe site. The reason I mention this source is because I no longer have any idea what makes a league "professional". Davidlofgren1996 (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I've found (questionable) sources which describe the league as amateur. You have not found any which describe it as fully-professional, and you have conveniently ignored the conundrum of what happens to the league when an ameteur team is promoted into it... GiantSnowman 19:58, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I mean, it would be the same situation with every other league. What happens when a semi-professional National League side with, say, 5 registered professional players, gets promoted to League Two? Do they have to tie all of their non-contracted players to fully professional terms? Do they release the players who are non-professional? An even closer comparison would be the Belgian First Amateur Division: If a team promoted from this "amateur" league get promoted to the "professional" Belgian First Division B, does that team suddenly give every player a full-time job/salary? Davidlofgren1996 (talk) 20:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

No idea about Belgium, but the National League is nearly fully professional, so most teams which get promoted will already be pro, and the teams that aren't will be semi-pro. Not nearly the same. GiantSnowman 16:42, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Also, some leagues specify the type of contracts that clubs are required to employ players on. It might be worth looking at the Linafoot rulebook, if one is available. Number 57 16:51, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Wartime football

Many professional leagues across the world were suspended during World War I and World War II. How best to add/display those years in this list? Pinging @Sulfurboy: who suggested it to me. I still think we should convert this list to a table, and we can include a 'notes' column explaining things like that. GiantSnowman 07:21, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

TTF 1. Lig (Turkish second tier)

Hello, I found it a bit od to see that the Turkish second tier was not considered fully professional, we're talking about one of the top 10 European club football countries... Actually the 4 first Turkish leagues are called professional, both here and on the Turkish WP, as it can be seen in several sources: [2], [3], [4] and [5].

I think with all this in mind it is pretty safe to assume that the second tier is also fully professional In turkey.

Transfermarkt also ranks the 1. Lig as the 9th most valuable 2nd tier league. I also found this job offer to play in the Turkish 1. Lig, for a pretty descent salary. These might not be top class sources, but when you actually have several relatively highly valued players joined this 1. Lig such as Joseph Attamah, those are some other elements that would imply it is a professional league... Sincerely, --Coco (talk) 20:52, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

None of these actually confirm anything of relevance though. The first four only off-handedly describe the league as professional without providing any sort detail to allow us to actually evaluate the state of professionalism, Transfermarkt is not a reliable source, and the other two tell us nothing about the league as a whole. Sir Sputnik (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes I agree those are not the best sources, but this is all I could find for the moment. And yes Transfermarkt is not a reliable source per se, but in this case still gives pretty accurate state of level of professionalism. If any of you can find better sources it would be more than welcome (some speaking Turkish?). Because I still believe this league is very likely to be fully professional. --Coco (talk) 23:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I have found this PDF file from the Turkish Football Federation regarding the 1. Lig. It states: "Spor Toto 1. Lig, Türkiye’nin en üst profesyonel futbol liginin bir alt ligidir." Now, Google translate seems to be a bit ambiguous: I'm unsure whether it's stating that it's a second-division league, which is also professional, or if it's saying that it's the league below the first (professional) division. It also states that "Clubs can sign as many professional football player contracts as they want" (Kulüpler istedikleri sayıda profesyonel futbolcu sözleşmesi imzalayabilirler ve tescil ettirebilirler). This article seems to refer to the first 4 divisions of Turkey as "professional". We firstly need someone fluent in Turkish to translate the first statement, and we also need some wage figures to have an idea on the professional status of the league. Nehme₁₄₉₉ (talk) 00:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)