Editorial policy

The role AI plays

AI assists research, source comparison, first drafting and fact-checking. It does not decide what is true, and it does not publish anything on its own: a human editor reviews the evidence behind every consequential claim and approves the exact wording before an article goes live. AI may not convert a rumour, an estimate or a single unattributed source into a stated fact.

How sources are weighted

Every source used in an article is treated according to how reliable it actually is:

Tier 1: primary and official

Governing body and club websites, official player profiles, press conferences, competition and statistics providers, public contract or salary announcements, and verified official accounts. Preferred for factual claims.

Tier 2: reputable reporting

Established national and specialist outlets with named reporters and a visible corrections process. Used for context and corroboration alongside Tier 1 sources.

Tier 3: discovery signals only

Social posts, forums, autocomplete and AI-generated summaries. These can point a researcher toward a story. They are never treated as proof on their own, and a claim resting only on a Tier 3 source is not published as settled fact.

Evidence rules

• Every sensitive or numerical claim needs a traceable source and, where the figure is an estimate rather than a confirmed number, is labelled as one.
• Repetition across multiple pages is not treated as independent corroboration when those pages are repeating the same unattributed original estimate.
• Salary, match fees, bonuses, sponsorship income and estimated net worth are kept separate from one another rather than combined into a single headline figure.
• Net-worth websites are not treated as evidence.
• Relationship and family coverage relies on public confirmation from the person involved or direct reporting from a reputable source. Sexuality or relationship status is never inferred from photographs, follows or appearances together, and speculative "secret partner" claims are not published.
• An approval is tied to the exact content it covers. Any change to a claim, a source or an image invalidates the existing approval, and the change must be reviewed again before it can be published.

How uncertainty is shown

Where the public record is genuinely unclear or contested, the article says so directly, usually as the central finding rather than a footnote. Claim-check articles carry an explicit verdict (supported, unsupported, mixed, or not independently verified) and a comparison of what each source actually claims, rather than a single averaged answer.

Related policies

See the corrections policy for how published articles get fixed, and the image and copyright policy for how images are sourced and credited.