Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sheffield United (Hong Kong)

=[[Sheffield United (Hong Kong)]]=

:{{la|Sheffield United (Hong Kong)}} – (View AfDView log{{•}} {{plainlink|1=http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/cgi-bin/afdparser?afd={{urlencode:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sheffield United (Hong Kong)}}|2=AfD statistics}})

:({{findsources|Sheffield United (Hong Kong)}})

First of all, to be clear, this nomination is for the Hong Kong football (soccer) club, not the similarly named Sheffield United F.C. in England. Second, this nomination arose after I saw the statement "According to your reasoning we should delete Sheffield United (Hong Kong) as that is just a branch of Chengdu Blades" in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Irish Amateur (2nd nomination) with the implication that such a nomination would be a bad idea. Nevertheless, I do have some concerns about this article, which may be resolvable, but if they are not resolvable, the article ought to be deleted.

The only source provided is a link to the page about this club's senior affiliate, Chengdu Blades F.C., on the web site of the English Sheffield United -- but it does not feature information about Sheffield United Hong Kong. Furthermore, this article claims that this club plays in the Hong Kong First Division League, the top level of Hong Kong football -- however, this club isn't mentioned in Hong Kong First Division League, or Hong Kong Second Division League, or Hong Kong Third Division "A" League, or Hong Kong Third Division "District" League. And those are all of the levels in the Hong Kong football league system. Nor is this club mentioned in the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation [http://www.rsssf.com/tablesh/hk2010.html archive page for Hong Kong]. I realize that some of the sources about this club may be in Chinese, a language I can't read. Nevertheless, if this article can't even clearly establish what league this club plays in, and no relevant sources are provided, it ought to be deleted. Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

  • Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. GiantSnowman 06:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Delete - based on the nominator's impressive research, this club doesn't seem to exist; if it does, then it is of such low notability that it doesn't merit an article in my view. GiantSnowman 06:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I would note that I found a small number of Google News hits that refer to this team, which suggest that it does exist. The problem is the lack of evidence as to them playing in the league they are claimed to play in. If a team is alleged to play in a certain league, one ought to be able to look in the article about the league, or any league table printed elsewhere, and see the team listed there. If the team isn't listed, that discrepancy calls into question anything else that has been written about the team. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Delete - I suspect that this club does exist but clearly is not playing at anywhere near the level required to meet WP:ORG. Nancy talk 06:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Chengdu Blades F.C.. The team does exist, but it is not a club in its own right, merely a a name used for advertising reasons by a reserve team of the Chengdu club. The reserve team does not seem to have anywhere near enough notability for an article of its own, but someone might search for it under the name "Sheffield United (Hong Kong)", so I have added a brief mention of this name to Chengdu Blades F.C., and a redirect seems appropriate. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the clarification. Does this reserve team play in some league competition? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Chengdu Blades F.C. - it seems like this club's the youth team of this who play in the Hong Kong league (if I remember correctly, they're a playable team in Football Manager 2009), so a redirect would probably be the best idea in this case. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess)|(talk to me)|(What I've done) 13:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Your comment raises what is really the key question in my mind. Does this team in fact play in the Hong Kong league, and how can we be sure of that? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment according to Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_First_Division_League_2008%E2%80%9309]) the team played in the top level of the Hong Kong league in 2008-09 so certainly a straight delete would not be appropriate. If they are simply a youth team of Chengdu Blades then a redirect may be in order, but if someone was looking at the 08/09 HK table and clicked on their name and redirected to Chengdu Blades, would there be anything there to make it clear who the actual team were playing in the HK league? Eldumpo (talk) 09:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • After checking [http://www.rsssf.com/tablesh/hk09.html RSSSF] which has substantially the same information, I am willing to withdraw this nomination but only if the article is edited to explain what happened to the team in 2009-10. Since the team did not get relegated after the 2008-09 season, they ought to still be in the First Division, but they apparently are not, according to 2009–10 Hong Kong First Division League. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

: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.