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American Indoor Soccer

I'm writing to determine the status of American indoor soccer particularly the Major Indoor Soccer League, and the National Professional Soccer League. From my understanding I don't see how both leagues aren't considered fully professional. Mohrflies (talk) posted severa1 links on August 2013 to support that argument here they are: I recently added a list of professional American indoor leagues to the USA entry, giving a source for each one. This list was deleted with the flippant, "Sources do not confirm the leagues as fully pro." However, the sources were respected soccer historians who characterized the leagues as "professional". Since I did not understand the dismissal of Colin Jose^[1], David Litterer^[2], Roger Allaway^[3] and Steve Holroyd as unreliable sources, I asked another editor what sources I should provide. According to him, sources should speak to "player registration regulations". That will be difficult, in fact impossible for most American professional leagues because "player registration regulations" are non-entities in the American sports scene. However, this other editor also said, "Other types of sources are usually articles that look at football clubs from a business point of view." So, here they are:

• This is a book about sports careers. See p. 133 for the entry on the MISL II, it comes right after the entries on FIFA and the World Cup.^[4]
• 1980 New York Times article about the Cosmos, at the height of their glory, wanting to play in the MISL.^[5]
• 1982 New York Times article regarding MISL player contracts. According to the Times, the league agreed that "club owners will retain television revenues and the players will receive higher salaries, per diem, termination pay and playoff revenues. Minimum salaries were increased to $2,000 a month."^[6]
• 1984 New York Times article about the Phoenix Pride selling the contracts of the last nine players on the team after losing $2.2 million the previous year.^[7]
• 1984 New York Times article on NASL teams moving to MISL, which required the NASL teams to post a "$400,000 entry fee and a $250,000 letter of credit."^[8]
• 1986 New York Times article about MISL teams refusing to release players for the World Cup. According to the Times, "The M.I.S,L. team owners contend that the players have contracts and that their first duty is to their teams."^[9]
• 1986 New York Times article about team-owner rebellion against league commissioner. One team owner said, "He had done his part in cutting back on high-priced players."^[10]
• 1986 Chicago Tribune article about an MISL player making $80,000-$90,000 a season.^[11]
• 1987 New York Times article profiling a "professional soccer player" in the MISL.^[12]
• 1987 New York Times article on failure of the New York Express. The team had planned to go public (sell stock like Manchester United just did).^[13]
• According to this 1988 LA Times article, MISL teams had a $1.275 million salary cap.^[14]
• 1988 article about the struggle for amateur players when it comes to giving up a good paying job to pursue an uncertain career as a professional indoor soccer player.^[15]
• 1989 LA Times article about the collapse of the Los Angeles Lazers. According to the article, "Lazer (and LA Lakers) owner Jerry Buss, who has reportedly lost more than $7 million on the franchise since its inception." ^[16]
• 1990 article regarding expansion of the American Indoor Soccer Association. Note the comparisons between the AISA and MISL.^[17]
• According to the Baltimore Sun in 1991, "Hale said he wants to invite all nine members of the NPSL into the MISL. "We would be the largest professional soccer league in the country if all nine teams came in," he said. However, Hale said he doesn't expect all nine NPSL teams to meet the "requirements" of the MSL. One of the main stumbling blocks to a consolidation of NPSL teams with the MSL is the difference in salary caps between the two leagues. The MSL has a team salary cap of $755,000; the NPSL cap is about $300,000. MSL players have been asked to take sizable pay cuts over the past three years and probably would protest further reductions." ^[18]
• 1995 lawsuit^[19]
• 1997 LA Times article regarding back-pay owed a Continental Indoor Soccer League team’s players.^[20]
• 2000 Baltimore Business Journal article about the National Professional Soccer League.^[21]
• 2001 Yale University article about an amateur player turning professional with an MISL II team.^[22]
• 2002 New York Times business section article on the MISL II^[23]
• 2003 Research Paper on small professional sports team using two NPSL teams as the basis for the study.^[24]
• This one is not online: International Sports Law and Business, Volume 1 by Wise and Meyer. There is a whole section on the various American professional leagues of the time, including MLS, A-League, NPSL, CISL, etc.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you all need more sources looking at clubs from a business point of view. Mohrflies (talk) 05:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC).

The NPSL old website states that it was professional.^[25]. Both leagues had a salary war to sign players^[26]. The NPSL secured a television deal with ESPN (a major sports channel) in 1994.^[27]. Not to mention the numerous USL players who played in within the league during the off season. Shotgun pete (talk) 06:45, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• The only other time we've discussed these leagues, was at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues/Archive 10#American indoor leagues. Looking at the discussion, it seemed to conclude that at least one incarnation of the Major Indoor Soccer League was fully-professional - with higher starting salaries than MLS - so I don't know why it's not listed here. Not sure about the National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001). Nfitz (talk) 03:24, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks for your response. I noticed that too that there was no real conclusion pertaining to that discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues/Archive 10#American indoor leagues. I agree on Major Indoor Soccer League being "fully" professional. I'm also pretty convinced that the National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001) was "fully" professional, due to the fact that numerous USL (a league considered fully professional by wikipedia standards) players and including a USL club (Montreal Impact) competed in the league during the outdoor off season. Not to mention in 1996 the debut season of the MLS an agreement was reached with the NPSL to allow players to play for both leagues.^[28]. Including the fact that the league had a salary war with the MISL over player contracts, what semi-pro/amateur league has a salary war? The league received notable coverage by having their matches broadcasted by ESPN (a major sports channel). Also according to these articles a USL First Division (fully professional by wikipedia standards) club named the Toronto Lynx had a reported player salary of $300,000 in 2006.^[29][30].In 1991, NPSL clubs also had a team salary cap of $300,000.^[31]. It would be nice to come to some fair conclusion about the status of both leagues. I don't want to waste my time including other peoples time in having to research and write articles and then have them deleted without a clear statement with facts about whether the league is "fully" professional or not. Shotgun pete (talk) 07:05, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Women's Leagues and Notability

Why are the same standards needed to apply to notability for Womens Leagues as an 'aide to define notability', when there are only 3 fully professional womens leagues in the world at the moment. I am sure that these guidelines or standards were predicated on the mens leagues, which have historically and currently had far more money available, to generate professional leagues. Some editors appear to be hiding behind these guidelines as if they are formal rules, and AfD Australian players that havent made the Australian national team. There is some general discussion of this here, and often on talk pages of individual players who's articles are going through AfD. (@The-Pope: : I am not including you in that sub-set of editors, as you've clearly made the effort to ask rather than launch straight into AfD). Matilda Maniac (talk) 01:27, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree that WP:NFOOTY and WP:FPL has gotten a bit out of hand, with many editors unthinkly applying them in issues of article creation/deletion. The ultimate goal of NFOOTY is to ensure that the creation of articles about footballers adheres to WP:GNG - i.e. that for a player to have an article, there needs to be enough information available to reliably source a full article. WP:NFOOTY is highly useful in outlining which players should be presumed to pass GNG (including but not limited to players in pro leagues) - without this, there could be endless afds or very blurred lines regarding which players do or do not warrant an article - BUT of course this is merely a presumption - it may well be that a pro player does not have enough material to pass GNG or vice versa.

As for women, I agree that it seems wrong that it should be harder for a female player to warrant an article than their male counterparts. However, the issue is this: the unfortunate reality is that there is not as much media focus on the women's game and as a result, often not enough information to pass GNG and therefore to create substantial articles on players (see the high proportion of women footballers with stubs/unreferenced). Should another feature be found which is indicative of whether or not female players are likely to pass GNG I would be all for its incorporation in WP:NFOOTY (I can't think of one off the top of my head but will have a think).

However, I don't think Wikipedia should pass on the bias present in the media, and so would be in favour of erring on the side of retaining articles on female footballers, but some level of media coverage does need to be met in order to ensure that the articles are (a) not stubs and (b) reliably sourced. Macosal (talk) 06:53, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I think it's important to consider the reasons why there isn't money available for women's leagues to go fully professional – money is a result of interest, in terms of spectators, tv coverage and sponsorship, and it's that interest that lends notability to the players. If there isn't money coming in, it's because there isn't interest, and if there isn't interest, the players won't be notable. Number 57 08:56, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I think that's overly simplistic. Money is a result of perceived interest (maybe women's football is harmed by traditional thinking as to what people are or aren't interested in?) amongst many other things. Far easier to concentrate on the amount of reliable 3rd party sources for each player (which in themselves are likely partially reflective of "interest" anyway). I think it's a bit dangerous to use the subjective concept of "interest" in discussing notability (and the guidelines don't mention it at all). Macosal (talk) 09:18, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

If you're concerned about "perceived" interest, the best way to assess actual interest is attendances. And as non-international footballers are only notable because it's a popular spectator sport (I know people who have played in the top division of a different sport in England, but they are not notable because hardly anyone no-one watches it), the level of interest is highly relevant.

Also, due to the level of coverage football gets, it's quite easy to write a well-referenced article on players well down the semi-professional leagues (to demonstrate this I recently created an example article in my userspace on a player in the eighth tier in England, and referenced it to four newspapers and the BBC Sport website). If we adopted this approach, it opens up the way for tens of thousands of articles on players who realistically are not really notable. Number 57 09:23, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the concept of "interest" itself is fundamentally vague and unhelpful here (and introducing attendances as a metric of that even more so). Focus needs to be on WP:N and WP:GNG, and how best WP:NFOOTY reflects this, if it doesn't already. Macosal (talk) 15:44, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The current standards are an objective way of defining what is acceptable and what is not. We can't have 2 different standards because that would be sexist. Op47 (talk) 19:13, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Former leagues

In the book Moving with the ball: The migration of professional footballers at page 119 it says that Yugoslav First League became fully professional in 1967. Would it be OK for me to add a subsection "Former leagues" and add Yugoslavia, or should I add it as note at Serbia since Serbian SuperLiga was the one that kept all time the league in continuation as "Savezna liga" from 1946 to 2006? FkpCascais (talk) 04:31, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

No need for a 'former leagues' section, defunct leagues are currently included in with current. Just make sure you add it was from 1967! GiantSnowman 07:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Agree, happy for you to add this to the main page as long as it is clearly labelled. Fenix down (talk) 08:07, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Done. FkpCascais (talk) 10:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Seriously?

How can you consider Dominican Republic's top league professional and not consider Puerto Rico's top league professional when these two leagues have the same level of competition? Seriesphile (talk · ctb) 23:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Presumably because one league is fully-professional and the other isn't. Or do you have evidence that the Puerto Rican league is fully-professional (or the Dominican one isn't)? Number 57 10:48, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not about common sense, it's about rigoursly enforcing rules. The rule says that evidence must be provided. Few would be crazy enough to suggest that the top Costa Rican league, for example, isn't fully professional - but written evidence is surprisingly scarce, and they remain unlisted here. So simply provide the evidence that Puerto Rico's top league is fully professional (or that Domincan's isn't), and all will be fixed. I think everyone is aware that there are possible errors or oversights on the list. Nfitz (talk) 23:47, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh, just realised that Puerto Rico is listed as not fully professional based on [32] where it says it's a semi-professional league. Is there any reason to think that is wrong? Nfitz (talk) 23:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Time for Review

I believe this guideline needs to be reviewed. It is my understanding that FIFA does not distinguish between "semi-professional" and "fully professional". A player is either a professional or an amateur. see page 10 So therefore the leagues listed cannot be described as "fully professional" because amateur players are not barred from playing in any of them. My suggestion is that the title should be changed to "top level and professional leagues" and/or that the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League and their equivalents in other confederations should be included. Currently articles on players who have played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are been deemed not notable based on the fact that they have not played in a so called "fully professional league". How can a player such as Gareth Seddon, who spent the majority of his career in the lower levels of English football be deemed notable, while a player like David McMillan who have played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League be regarded as non-notable. Djln (talk) 12:33, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

They can be listed as fully-professional because in many cases we have reliable sources saying they are (I'm not sure how or why FIFA would be relevant here?). It's been suggested many times to allow top level players notability, and rejected every time because there are many top flight leagues that playing in would not make someone notable. Number 57 21:56, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I really cannot get over the comment here on why FIFA would be relevant. My question is why is User:Number 57 relevant? FIFA are the governing body of football in the world. Their definition of a professional contract would be a place to start given the clear lack of any definition existing any where else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidDublin (talk • contribs) 12:44, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Djln, never mind Gareth Seddon. What about Biko Brennan in USL! There is something wrong with the rules that allow lower league Polish players qualify for notability where Ciaran Kilduff is starting his second Europa League campaign and has had his article deleted twice! But he is notable enough to have an article on the french wiki? DavidDublin (talk) 12:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Philippines

Might be too early but the Philippines is setting a fully-professional league soon, the Philippines Football League as early as March 2017. As stated in this article the league will be fully professional and will have a salary cap for its players. There is also a licensing system to be imposed on the clubs. The only potential setback would be if the league only manage to gather less than six teams which it would mean that it is not recognized by the AFC as a national league but I don't know if it could still be considered a professional league.--Hariboneagle927 (talk) 05:05, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I would wait until we hear word from the AFC in regards to what the consider it. If they consider it good enough to be the national league, the league champions are allowed in Asian competition, and again, all players are considered professional (which is seems they will) then we can add them. I am very excited by this! --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 23:03, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Agree with ArsenalFan, it certainly seems like they might meet FPL criteria, so definitely something to keep an eye on. Fenix down (talk) 07:27, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Kazakhstan Premier League.

Can this league be added to the fully pro leagues.

"Wages at the top clubs in the Kazakh Premier League average about $15,000 a month, although the highest-paid players can earn double that amount, the source said. Further down the league table, average wages are closer to $6,000-7,000 a month."

http://in.reuters.com/article/soccer-kazakhstan-idINDEE8850C120120906 — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidDublin (talk • contribs) 21:30, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

It should be already here! And First League also. They're both members of EPFL Respublik (talk) 04:47, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

We've been through the EPFL before - membership of that organisation does not confer 'fully-professional' status on Wikipedia. GiantSnowman 06:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi GiantSnowman. You seem to be covering the same ground over and over. I think this is because there is a lack of a clear definition of professional football on the project page. I think we need something. FIFA, UEFA, PFAI (other associations probably too) have their standards of what a professional footballer/league is. Even the wiki does. However this page has a different definition which is undocumented. Whatever the criteria is should be placed on the project page. I gather from conversations here that a professional footballer earns a sufficient wage so football is his sole source of employment and can full support his cost of living. A sufficient wage varies from country to country and is generally accepted to be at least the country average wage. In addition a professional football trains full time - presumably something like 4 days per week plus match day to make a 5 day week. All first squad players in all teams in a league need to be professional for the league to be considered fully professional. I would also like to note that the definition applied here is way above any definition applied of professionalism even on other parts of the wiki. And I would also like to note that the definition here is practically unprovable as confidential contracts on what individual players are earning are not public information. DavidDublin (talk) 09:06, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

From the source presented above, I see no reason why Kazakhstan's top league should not be added. The source is reliable and the figures quoted are easily enough for players to require no other form of employment and I see nothing to indicate that the situation has changed since 2012. I would be happy for this to be added to the list with a note indicating that players from 2012 onwards are considered notable per NFOOTY.

I would echo GS's comments on EPFL, membership does not indicate fully professional (or even professional) status. If you read the wiki article, you will see it is an organisation of bodies which arrange competition in countries, and these often extend to second / third tier competitions which have a much reduced level of professionalism.

I am also not convinced of the need to establish any objective criteria around full professionalism, nor that that is possible. there is no need, because there is already a perfectly workable guideline in GNG for any player who has received wide coverage regardless of level. Secondly, WP:FPL is decided by consensus in the same way enWiki is. It would not be possible to have a concrete criterion around salaries for example given widely differing living requirements globally. However, in this instance, we have discussed a reliable source and, unless there is some objection, I see no reason why it should not be added to the list.

As previously established, the league's membership in the EPFL is not indicative of anything for the purpose of this list, but the Reuters source is convincing enough. As such, I have added the league to the list. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:08, 14 September 2016 (UTC)