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I thought I'd compile a list of all of the current FIFA member countries (and their top divisions) which are currently missing from the list, hopefully this can serve as a point of reference so that all of these leagues may be added in the future. S.A. Julio (talk) 18:10, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Total missing: 3

• CONMEBOL (1 missing)
  •  Ecuador – Ecuadorian Serie A
• CONCACAF (2 missing)
  •  Costa Rica – Liga FPD
  •  Honduras – Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional de Honduras

I'm not sure I understand why we need both a list of FPL leagues and also a list of leagues which aren't FPL. Clearly if a league is not on the FPL list, it's not FPL, so what's the point? --SuperJew (talk) 19:19, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not being on the list may also mean status is unknown or that references cannot be found (there are a few countries that almost certainly have fully-pro leagues, but it's been difficult to source). I think your statement is probably applicable to women's leagues though, as a league being fully-pro would be unusual and probably highlighted somewhere. Number 57 20:07, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume the main (if not only) use of this list is to know if a league is FPL in relevance to WP:NFOOTY. In that case, if a league is not on the FPL list, it doesn't matter if it's because it's confirmed as not FPL or if it's unknown, a player playing in the league wouldn't be considered notable. --SuperJew (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if I'm misunderstanding it, but your point doesn't seem to make sense. If we have a player in a league whose status is currently unclear, we don't know whether they pass WP:NFOOTY or not. Number 57 20:56, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Number 57: Say for example there's a player who's only played in the Ecuadorian Serie A at an AfD. Would you say keep or delete based on WP:NFOOTY? --SuperJew (talk) 22:10, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No-one would be able to !vote either way on the basis of WP:NFOOTY because we don't know the league's professional status. Number 57 22:26, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If only the verified fully professional leagues were included, that would imply all other leagues missing from the list are not fully professional, which isn't necessarily true. Having two lists is helpful in knowing which leagues are still undetermined. S.A. Julio (talk) 21:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So what's going on with the Ecuadorian Serie A, is it a FPL? I want to know if I can create a page for a player. Cam (talk) 11:49, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Based on this guideline, no. However that doesn't mean an article can't be produced if you can cite sufficient third party coverage to satisfy GNG. Fenix down (talk) 09:43, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't say, that a player has to be a pro (in most league in Europe a player can make an apperance even if he is not a pro, eg a junior). It says that only professional contracts can be signed. There is no such thing as an "amateur contract" in slovenian first league, all contract listed in the pdf are professional contracts. That is the vast majority of players in the league. Ludost Mlačani (talk) 10:35, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I've always scratched my head on why it's so difficult to find Honduran and especially Costa Rican references about profesionality (one way or another). And watching such teams play, and knowing that they are televised internationally, I've scratched my head on how the top league isn't fully professional. Someone recently brought this 2016 reference] about the Costa Rican Liga FPD to my attention. I'm told that these are monthly salaries, and the minimum reported is equivalent to that of an average rural wage. But there's only 4 teams here, I don't really know how far down the depth the minimum salary is, etc. But it's the best information one way or another I've seen. I'm not providing a recommendation - just passing on what I've seen. Nfitz (talk) 01:20, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

Although the third level of Italian football was changed from semi-professionalism to professionalism in 1978, it appears that over the past few seasons, and particularly in the 2019–20 season, the league is again functioning as a semi-professional league. Contrasti magazine has a detailed article about the challenges facing Serie C, with several clubs dissolving or withdrawing from the league as club revenues have been insufficient to meet the mandated 26,000-euro minimum player salary. If clubs are unable to pay their player salaries and are dissolving to avoid their responsibility, can we really say this league is still fully-pro? The Contrasti article cites league leadership and club chairmen that are pushing to officially return to semi-professionalism for Serie C. Should we update the FPL list to show Serie C as fully-pro from 1978–2019? Jogurney (talk) 20:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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.^[1] 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)[reply]

Making a case here that either the USL Championship should be removed from the list of fully professional leagues, or the term "fully professional" should be revised. Even though the USL Championship is the second-highest league in the US, it does not fit the current criteria for "fully professional". USL Championship teams sign players to "Academy Contracts" in which players are not paid so that they can keep their college eligibility. Here are a couple of examples: Sacramento Republic FC, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Charlotte Independence, Tulsa FC LamBiosInc (talk) 04:32, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the answer but the 2019 Soccer Today article says, "Typically, USL teams are allowed to roster a maximum of five young players who are on Academy contracts on their game-day roster, although very rarely does this happen." If these clubs are now allowed to use players on academy contracts and regularly do so (the part which seems unclear to me), it does call into question the full-time professionalism of the league. I guess the other question is whether we should treat the entire league as non-fully-pro if a club or two rely on using amateur players regularly. I think we need to do some research to get to the bottom of it. Jogurney (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are these limited number of Academy players any different, really, to youth players playing for Premier League teams? GiantSnowman 21:58, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]