The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. John254 00:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nikola Saric[edit]

Nikola Saric (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Young footballer who fails WP:ATHLETE as he has never played in a fully professional league (the Danish 1st Division is not fully pro) and consensus is that youth caps do not confer notability (last AfD confirming this here). The fact that he has signed for a Premiership club is irrelevant (see many other AfDs on youth players without a first team appearance: 1, 2, 3, 4). пﮟოьεԻ 57 20:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. пﮟოьεԻ 57 20:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep - Herfolge are a professional side and he has played with full-time professionals at that club. He has made league appearances in a league which has dedicated coverage. He has now signed further professional terms with Liverpool.Londo06 21:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The fact that Herfolge are professional is completely irrelevant - they do not play in a fully professional league (the equivalent is players playing for a fully pro team in the Football Conference, which have been determined on many many occasions to fails the criteria as the league is not fully professional). As proved by the links to previous AfDs, signing for a big club does not help him pass WP:ATHLETE either - he must play for the club. Until then, any attempt to claim that he will is a WP:CRYSTAL violation. пﮟოьεԻ 57 21:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I've certainly heard of Herfolge and they are indeed a professional outfit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Come on the Mothers (talk • contribs) 21:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As noted above (twice), the fact that they are professional is totally irrelevant. They do not play in a fully professional league. пﮟოьεԻ 57 21:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Saric doesn't pass WP:Athlete, but I think the coverage of him meets the general WP:Notability guidelines, namely "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." On a national/international scaleYahoo! Sport, The Sun, and The Telegraph all had articles that were primarily or exclusively about him, in addition to plenty of coverage in large local papers such as The Liverpool Daily Post. In full consideration of WP:CRYSTALBALL and the fact that he hasn't played for Liverpool yet, national papers running stories in which you are the centerpiece counts as notable for me. Vickser (talk) 21:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any player signing for a Premiership club will have a news report on him. However, as shown in the links to previous AfDs provided above, players who merely sign for Premiership clubs are not deemed article-worthy. пﮟოьεԻ 57 21:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, any player who signs for a Premiership club will have some coverage on him, but you'll note that he is the centerpiece of the linked articles. Articles simply mentioning his transfer (as all transfers get mentioned) would not qualify as "significant coverage", articles where he is the lead story, in my opinion, do. For comparison with some of the rightfully deleted players you linked, Jay Spearing got listed with a whole bunch of other boys in a paragraph at the bottom in the Telegraph [1]. Ray Putterill's national paper coverage consisted of a Daily Mail article mentioning his name with 4 others as local youngster's the club signed.[2] As far as I can tell, none of the other players linked were the subject of significant coverage in independent reliable sources and thus are non-notable. For Saric, that's not the case. Vickser (talk) 22:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete - the player clearly fails WP:ATHLETE and WP:FOOTY. As for the notability point above, the player admits himself in the article that he will be playing (at least initially) for Liverpool's reserve team, which is not notable. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 21:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. GiantSnowman 01:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep He played for Herfølge, who are a professional side in Denmark. So he does not fail WP:ATHLETE. Dan the Man1983 (talk) 13:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As noted above (three or four times), the fact that they are professional is totally irrelevant. They do not play in a fully professional league. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I hate to use a cliche, but I think some people are missing the forest for the trees. Every single notability guideline is subordinate to WP:N, which says that notability is defined as "significant coverage by reliable third-party sources" (not an exact quote, I'm going off memory here). On an unrelated note, is the Danish 1st Division definitely not fully professional? Doing a quick survey I notice a few prominent names (especially Silkeborg and AB) out of the list of clubs that participated in that league last season... ugen64 (talk) 07:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I checked with Danish editor User:Kalaha before nominating this for AfD - he said the division is a mix of fully pro, semi pro and amateur clubs. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Remarks above about needing to be in a fully professional league are troubling. I can find no Wikipedia policy on this; indeed, Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability does not mention this and specifically says:

"Players are deemed notable if they meet any of the criteria below:

1. Have played for a fully professional club at a national level of the league structure..."

which seems to me to cover this. In addition, the Danish 1st Division with 16 teams is the second tier of Danish football, the Superligaen having 12 clubs, making Herfølge one of the top 28 clubs in the country. Now, whether or not this player is notable depends on the level of his involvement in these clubs/leagues, about which I have no knowledge and will leave others to decide, but attempting to delete him on the basis of the clubs/leagues he plays in is wrong. Emeraude (talk) 09:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FOOTYN has not been accepted by the wider community (as it says on the page itself, it "is not a policy or guideline"), so is irrelevant. I don't see how you have missed WP:ATHLETE ("Competitors who have competed in a fully professional league") given that it has been mentioned at least five times. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep as he is a notability - he is the latest winner of Danish U-17 award. Further there is very few amateur clubs in the Danish 1st Division (one or two, maybe) and most of the teams are fully pro. kalaha 10:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I can find no evidence that it is not a professional league. CorleoneSerpicoMontana (talk) 10:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Numbers57 is invoking Kalaha as his primary defense for nomination, but Kalaha seems to believe the article should be kept. With the award, first team appearances, and the media coverage, I think this is a case where project guidelines need to be subordinated. He has made first team appearances, so he is not an explicitly youth team player, so it makes that argument difficult, even if he will be with Liverpool reserves initially. matt91486 (talk) 16:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. We need to be careful to follow the spirit of a guideline. WP:ATHLETE confers notablity on Competitors who have competed in a fully professional league. But how fully is fully? And how do we apply this to every sport. In the absence of community-accepted detailed criteria for each sport, we need to be careful how to apply this. If we were to apply the letter of the guideline rigidly, we'd wipe out many, many articles (such as most of those listed in Category:Canadian lacrosse players - for while they are fully professional teams and a league, most NLL players have alternate sources of income. So we have to follow the spirit. In this case a fully-professional player has played for a fully-professional team, in a national league comprised mostly of fully-professional teams. Common sense dictates that under these circumstances the spirit of WP:ATHLETE has been met. Nfitz (talk) 20:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Yes, he passes WP:ATHLETE. Ecoleetage (talk) 20:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I dont see any reasons why this entry should be deleted. He's a young, coming player, now on one of the biggest teams in England. Why shouldnt there be an entry about himk? Stupid suggetion. --80.203.70.235 (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, it's a blurred line between professional team and league, WP:Athlete is not specific enough. The combination of other notability factors (coverage, etc) suggests this player will pass notability. Rasadam (talk) 18:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I think in this case the professional status of the Danish league is irrelevant. The fact that his team plays in that country's top division is notable enough on its own. Perhaps an amendment needs to be made to WP:ATHLETE or WP:FOOTYN to cover this. Bettia (rawr CRUSH!) 08:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • His team doesn't play in the country's top tier though - the Danish 1st Division is the second tier - ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Boy, is my face red. That'll teach me to be so hasty. Bettia (rawr CRUSH!) 11:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.