Fact-Checking Policy

The discipline, stated once

At FOOTBALL INSTANT, verification has a single meaning: the primary document. A claim counts as checked when we have read the material it rests on ourselves, not when we have found it repeated somewhere convincing. Football produces an unusual amount of primary material, since clubs, leagues, federations and competitions all publish, and an unusual amount of noise on top of it, since much of what circulates about transfers comes from people with something to gain. This page sets out how the discipline is applied to each kind of material our sections run on, and what happens when it fails.

What counts as a source

Sources sit in a hierarchy, and a claim’s weight depends on where its source sits. Highest are official documents and records: club and league statements, federation and confederation communications, FIFA and UEFA regulations, written disciplinary decisions and their reasons, transfer registrations and the systems that record them, competition rule books, refereeing and VAR protocols as published, squad lists and team sheets, official match records and attendance figures, filed club accounts and ownership filings. Next are statements made on the record by people placed to know, identified by name and role. Below those sit press releases and spokesperson statements, which prove what an organisation claims and nothing more, and briefings from agents, intermediaries and other interested parties, which prove that the briefing happened. Lowest are hearsay, social media claims and anonymous posts: enough to start us looking, never enough to publish on.

One source will do for a fact that the source alone is placed to know and has no motive to misstate. A disputed or consequential claim needs either a document or a second source independent of the first. Ten accounts repeating one claim are one source.

Transfers, fees and contracts

Every transfer story states the stage the move has reached: interest, talks, an agreement in principle between clubs, agreed personal terms, a medical, or a completed registration. Only a move registered with the competent league or association and announced by the clubs is reported as done.
A fee is checked against the club announcement, the league record or the filed accounts. Where only a range is available, the range is published as a range with its source described, and it is never averaged into a single figure nobody actually stated. Where clubs state different figures, both are reported with attribution.
Fee structure is checked before the headline number is used: guaranteed sum, add-ons and their conditions, sell-on percentage, payment schedule and currency. A figure that mixes guaranteed money with unearned add-ons is treated as an error, not as a rounding.
Contract length, expiry date and release clause are reported from the club announcement, the registration record or a document we have seen. A clause described only by an agent is reported as an agent’s description, with that attribution attached.
Window deadlines are checked against the association or league concerned, because they differ by country and by season, and eligibility to play after a registration is checked against the competition’s own rules rather than assumed.

Matches, results and data

Scores, scorers, assists, cards, substitutions, minutes played and official attendance figures are taken from the competition’s official record or the team sheet, and a live figure is treated as provisional until that record is published.
Where a data provider and the official record disagree, the official record is what we publish, and the discrepancy is described where it matters.
Statistical claims state their definition and sample: which competitions are counted, which seasons, whether qualifying rounds are included. A record claim is checked against the body that keeps the record, and where no body keeps it, the claim is attributed rather than asserted.
Squad lists and eligibility are checked against the submitted list for the competition in question, since a player registered for one competition is not necessarily eligible for another.

Refereeing, VAR and disciplinary decisions

A decision is reported against the written protocol or regulation that governs it, quoted from the published text rather than from memory, and the article names the provision.
Sanctions are reported from the written decision where one is published: the offence, the provision applied, the length, when it takes effect, which competitions it covers and whether an appeal is open. A sanction announced in summary form is reported as a summary until the reasons appear.
An appeal outcome is checked against the decision of the body that heard it, and the original article is updated with the result.
Where an official’s decision is criticised, the criticism is set against what the protocol permits, and we do not publish claims about what was said between officials unless a published record or an on-the-record source supports it.

Finances, ownership and governance

Financial figures are checked against filed accounts or official statements for the period, and where a summary and a filing disagree, the filing wins. The period, the entity and the currency are stated, because a club’s playing entity and its holding company are not the same thing.
Ownership and control claims are checked against corporate filings and registers rather than announcements, and a change of ownership is reported as complete only when the relevant approval and filing exist.
Regulatory compliance claims, including spending and squad cost rules, are checked against the published rule and the competent body’s own decision, and the article states which season’s rules apply.
Percentages are checked against their base, movements are given with the before and after figures, and orders of magnitude are checked twice.

Quotations, video, images and the process on every story

A quotation is verified against the recording, the transcript or the statement as issued; cuts inside it are marked and its meaning is never changed. Quotations translated from another language are checked against the original wording, and where a translation is contested we say so, since a mistranslated phrase from a press conference is a common error on this beat. Video and images are checked for the match, the date and the origin, and clips circulating during a match or a transfer window are held until their provenance is established. The writer records the source of each factual assertion as the story is written. Before publication, a second person goes through the story against that record, paying closest attention to fees, names, scorelines, dates, sanctions and anything alleging wrongdoing. Stories carrying serious allegations, naming private individuals or describing disciplinary or criminal matters receive a further review, and a story that fails at this stage is held. Verification beats speed whenever the two collide, including on deadline day.

Uncertainty, and what happens after publication

Not everything can be verified by deadline. In descending order of preference, we wait; we publish what is verified and say plainly what is not yet known; or, where the unverified claim is itself the news, we report that the claim exists, where it came from, who benefits from it and which checks remain open. We never dress uncertainty in phrases that imply knowledge we do not have. Checking does not end at publication either. A developing story is rechecked as documents arrive, errors that slip through are repaired under our corrections policy, and the correction log is combed for patterns that become new rules on this page. Anyone who spots an error, or who wants the source behind a factual claim we have made, can write to support@futbolalinstante.com. Showing our sources is part of the job, not a concession.