About The ARCHV

What we publish

Daily desk entries on the transfer market, international football and the league season, each short and written to be read once, without jargon or padding. The site also keeps question pages on the NFL, Formula 1, tennis, golf and basketball, the long reads, a glossary, and an archive of 18 finals, ten of them World Cup finals from Mexico 1970 to MetLife 2026.

Everything reads free on the web. The same stories reach the iPhone app, which has no paywall and no in-app purchases. Its Buy Here buttons open the poster shop on Etsy.

Who makes it

Joseph Bankole founded The ARCHV and sets its rules. The daily desk entries and question pages are drafted with automated writing tools and published under the checks set out in how the daily desks are made, which is why they carry The ARCHV Desk as their byline. Joseph is the person answerable for everything the site publishes. His profile below says more, and his own site is josephbankole.ca.

How we verify

The ARCHV is a football-history publication. We treat the game's present the way we treat its past, by checking it before we publish. This page sets out how we decide what to run, and how confident we are when we run it.

Two sources before we publish

Nothing goes up as fact on a single source, with one standing exception: on the NFL and Formula 1 desks, the league's own official record is enough on its own, and it is named on the page. Everywhere else, a claim, a fee, a date or a scoreline is checked against at least two independent outlets before we treat it as settled. Two write-ups of the same original scoop are not two sources; we want outlets that did the reporting separately.

Breaking news: the REPORTED tier

Transfer news moves faster than confirmation, and the best of it often breaks through one reporter. When a named journalist with a strong record breaks a story alone, we may run it marked REPORTED, with the reporter and outlet named every time.

REPORTED means one credible source and nothing more. It does not turn into confirmed because other sites have copied it. It hardens only when the club confirms, or a genuinely separate outlet reports the same thing.

CONFIRMED, REPORTED and RUMOUR say what they mean

Every desk entry carries a label that says how firm it is. CONFIRMED means two independent outlets, or the official body for NFL and Formula 1 results. REPORTED means one named reporter, named on the page. RUMOUR, used on the transfer desk only, means a link and not a move, however loudly it is being talked about. We do not blur the three to make a story sound bigger than it is. When we are not sure, the label says so.

How the daily desks are made

The daily desk entries and the question pages are drafted with automated writing tools, language models among them, working from the sources each entry names. Every draft goes through the same checks before it can publish: a named source for each fact, figures re-read against those sources at the moment of publishing, and a dated stamp. A draft that fails them does not run. No person reads a desk entry before it goes up, so those pages carry The ARCHV Desk as their byline rather than a name. Joseph Bankole sets these rules and answers for what the desks publish, and a piece he wrote himself carries his name.

Editorial standards

The artwork is our own

Every image on The ARCHV is original illustration, drawn in our own house style. We use no club crests, no kit designs, no federation or competition marks, and no photographs. The faces are stylised drawings published as editorial commentary, not likenesses passed off as photos.

We answer to nobody in the game

The ARCHV is independent. We are not affiliated with FIFA, or with any club, federation, league or competition. No governing body approves our copy and none pays for it. That independence is the point of the whole thing: it is what lets us call a rumour a rumour, and correct ourselves in public when we get it wrong.

What you are promised

• No betting, and no betting ads.
• No account, on the site or in the app.
• No paywall on the web.
• One notification a day in the app, and no more than that.

Who pays for it

The only money The ARCHV takes comes from the posters it sells through its Etsy shop and from paid subscriptions to the Dispatch newsletter, which is paused. No club, league or betting company pays for anything here.

Corrections

The archive is a record, so it is not quietly rewritten. When a fact changes, or when we get one wrong, the change is added to the piece and dated. The original wording stays where it was.

Corrections are appended, not swapped in

A published entry is never silently edited. A change arrives as a dated addition at the foot of the piece, or as a visible change of status on a transfer. The note reads like this:

Update, 4 July: the club confirmed the move the day after this entry was filed.

Rewriting a headline, the line beneath it or a judgment after publication, without saying so, is not allowed. You can read what we first said, and see what changed, on the same page.

Backfill is a different thing

Backfill adds entries for days that have none. It is written from that day's sources and describes what was known then, with no hindsight framing. A correction changes something already published, and it always shows itself.

New lanes launch under their real publish date. Nothing is back-dated to make the archive look older than it is.

What gets corrected

• A wrong score, date, name spelling, fee or attendance figure.
• A story that resolved the other way after we published it.
• A claim attributed to the wrong reporter or the wrong outlet.
• A name left ambiguous because two footballers share it and the sentence never settled which one we meant.

How to report an error

Email partnerships@josephbankole.ca. Say which page you are reading and which line looks wrong, and what you believe the right version is. A link to a source makes it quicker to check.

Anything that checks out is corrected on the page itself, with the date the note went up.

The corrections log

Every correction, update and revision note on the site is listed here as well as on its page, newest first. The list is rebuilt from the pages each time the site is published. A correction quotes what the page said, then what is right and where we checked it. An update or a revision adds to a page without saying it was wrong, so its note appears as it stands.

• 12 October 2026 · Revised · The ARCHV Method: AI magazine covers in a browser tab

  Was: The note named the image model and the vendor's browser workspace behind the covers, in its title, description, quick answer and body.

  Now: The note describes the same method without naming the model or the vendor, because the site does not name the image model on pages about its art. Nothing else in the note changed.

  Sources: The ARCHV house rule on pages about the illustrated art, 19 September 2026.

• 12 October 2026 · Revised · Long reads copied from The ARCHV Dispatch

  Was: Eleven issues copied from the Dispatch kept lines written for email: reply-by-email prompts, forward-and-subscribe lines, the weekly-letter footer and promises of a round-up next Sunday.

  Now: Those lines are off the site copies, because the Dispatch is paused and a web page cannot take a reply. The reporting is unchanged. The issues: Manchester City guilty on every financial charge across nine seasons; Manchester City guilty on 114 of 115 charges, reports say; Pro Ref stood down two officials over one Manchester derby goal; Manchester United Women's biggest night was a 3-0 in Leigh; The £222m transfer that was really a resignation; Hull City beat Manchester United at the eleventh try; Napoli bought a striker without a phone call; Mbappé took the record on the wrong night; Milla's record, and the man closing in on it; Canada's World Cup story; Hosts again: the USA's whole World Cup story.

  Sources: The ARCHV Dispatch on Substack, paused 6 October 2026.

• 12 October 2026 · Revised · The ARCHV Method: Why we need a dedicated 'Creative Studio' workspace

  Was: The long read named the image model and the vendor's browser workspace in its title, dek and body, and linked to the vendor's pages.

  Now: The long read describes the same method without naming the model or the vendor, and the links to the vendor's pages are gone. The web address is unchanged.

  Sources: The ARCHV house rule on pages about the illustrated art, 19 September 2026.

• 12 October 2026 · Revised · Where can I get a print of Canada's first World Cup win?

  Was: The read linked to a poster bundle on Etsy holding all ten Canada plates.

  Now: The bundle listing was deactivated on 12 October 2026, so the link is gone. A dated note at the end of the read says the Canada prints are no longer for sale.

  Sources: The ARCHV Etsy shop, 12 October 2026.

• 12 October 2026 · Correction · Azteca 1986: the final Maradona dragged Argentina to

  Was: "The poster carries the line \"four minutes in June\", and that points to the match before this one rather than the final itself."

  Now: The four minutes came in the quarter-final against England on 22 June 1986, a week before the final, not in the semi-final, which was the match before the final. The page no longer carries a poster.

  Sources: FIFA, 1986 FIFA World Cup Mexico match results; Wikipedia, 1986 FIFA World Cup knockout stage.

• 4 October 2026 · Correction · Two tournaments left to reach the FedExCup playoffs

  Was: the Wyndham Championship ran from 5 to 9 August

  Now: 6 to 9 August

  Sources: CBS Sports; ESPN.

• 4 October 2026 · Correction · Who won the last ever Rocket Classic?

  Was: the Wyndham Championship ran from 5 to 9 August

  Now: 6 to 9 August

  Sources: CBS Sports; ESPN.

• 22 September 2026 · Correction · Canada held DPR Korea goalless into injury time, then lost the U-20 World Cup quarter-final to two late goals

  Was: "Canada led the U-20 World Cup quarter-final into injury time, then lost it in four minutes"; "This was Canada's third quarter-final, after 2004 and 2014."; "Ho Kyong in the 96th".

  Now: Canada never led. DPR Korea won 2-0 and the match was goalless until the 92nd minute. It was Canada's fourth quarter-final, after 2002, 2004 and 2014. The 96th minute for the second goal is Concacaf's count. The AFC puts it two minutes after the 92nd-minute opener, and the page now gives both.

  Sources: Concacaf and AFC match reports; Canada Soccer; Wikipedia.

• 22 September 2026 · Correction · Canada went out of the Under-20 World Cup with four shots and a goalkeeper who kept them in it.

  Was: "Korea DPR", four times, including the page title; "in the 92nd minute and the 96th".

  Now: DPR Korea, the form the AFC and FIFA use and the one the 21 September page uses. The second goal came a few minutes after the first: Concacaf has the 96th minute, the AFC two minutes after the 92nd.

  Sources: AFC; FIFA; Concacaf.

• 22 September 2026 · Correction · Most World Cup titles

  Was: Spain on one title; "the 22 tournaments held from 1930 to 2022"; "France reached a third straight final in 2022"; "Whoever lifts it on 19 July, the record above moves"; and an editor's note that the semi-final results "should be re-confirmed on publish day, with the final result added after 19 July"; "Argentina, the modern holders"; "Argentina hold the trophy now"; "the only nation on the four-and-below tier still adding to its count"; "France and Uruguay share second-from-bottom of the multiple-winners, two apiece"; "seven knockout wins in a month".

  Now: Spain beat Argentina 1-0 after extra time on 19 July 2026 for their second title, which makes 23 tournaments from 1930 to 2026. Argentina beat England 2-1 in the Atlanta semi-final. France's finals were 1998, 2006, 2018 and 2022, with a quarter-final exit in 2014, so 2022 was their second straight final. The editor's note is gone. Argentina held the trophy until the 2026 final, and Spain sit on two titles with France and Uruguay. A champion played seven matches, four of them knockouts, from 1998 to 2022, and eight, five of them knockouts, in 2026.

  Sources: CBS News and Yahoo Sports, 19 July 2026; FIFA; Olympics.com; ESPN.

Privacy policy

Last updated 19 October 2026

The ARCHV is an independent football publication. We publish an iOS app and this website. There are no ads on either, there are no accounts, and we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites. This page says exactly what we do collect and which outside companies handle it for us, in plain words.

The app

The app has no login and no account. What it handles:

• An anonymous device id. The app generates a random identifier on your phone. It is not your hardware id and it is not linked to your name. It exists so a support message or a push opt-in can be tied to your install and nothing else.
• Daily push, if you turn it on. Opting in sends your phone's push token to our server with the anonymous id, the app version, and your phone's time zone setting (a name such as Europe/London). The app may also send the sport you picked on Home, and the notification then carries that sport's lead story. We store the token, the id, the app version, the sport if the app sent one, whether push is on, when the app last registered, and the day we last sent that phone a notification. We use them to send one notification a day through Apple's push service. Our server does not store the time zone at present. Turning the toggle off stops the push.
• Support messages. If you write to us through Settings, we store your message, the category you picked, the app version, and the anonymous id, along with anything you add to the conversation later. An email address is optional; if you include one, we use it only to reply to you.
• The first reply is automated. When a new support message arrives, its text, category, and app version go to Anthropic, whose Claude model writes a first reply from our help notes, or a short holding reply if a person needs to look at it. That step does not send your email address or the anonymous id.
• Messages that need the founder. If the automated step passes a message up to the founder, an email goes to his inbox through Zoho Mail, our email provider. It contains your message, its category, the app version, the automated reply, and a one-line note. Your email address is not in it.
• Usage analytics. We use PostHog to count things like opens and reads so we know what is worth writing. PostHog is a separate company that handles this data for us. The app sends events to PostHog under a random id that PostHog creates for your install, which is not the device id above. When you open, save, or rate a story (More like this or Fewer like this), or use the Continue reading card, the event includes the story's headline. The open, save, and rating events also include its section. Every event carries details that PostHog's own software adds, including the phone model, iOS version, app version, language setting, and time zone. PostHog uses the IP address each event comes from to estimate a rough location, such as the city or country, and then discards the address. We never use any of it to follow you anywhere else.
• Saved stories, and the story you last left unfinished, stay on your phone. The app does not upload them. The analytics events above do record a story's headline when you open or save it.

Support messages and push tokens are kept in a database that Supabase runs for us. Nothing is sold, shared for advertising, or used to build a profile of you.

The website

This site uses the same PostHog analytics, and it honours your browser's Do Not Track setting. This site serves its own fonts, so your browser does not request them from anyone else. Partnership enquiries come by email to partnerships@josephbankole.ca, and the site has no contact form.

Android visitors to the app page see a waitlist. Joining it stores your email address, your browser's user agent (the line of text that names your browser and operating system), and the page you signed up on, in the same Supabase database. We use the address to tell you when the Android app is ready.

Deleting your data

Deleting the app removes everything stored on the device, but not what has already reached our database, such as a support conversation or a push token. If you have written to support and want that conversation and any details in it removed, ask us and we will delete it. To ask about deleting a push token, a waitlist email, or anything else on this page, email partnerships@josephbankole.ca.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. We will not quietly add tracking; no ads and no cross-site tracking is a product promise, not a settings default.

Contact

Email partnerships@josephbankole.ca or message @thearchvfc on Instagram. For app help, see support.

The ARCHV is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or licensed by FIFA, any club, federation, competition, or player.

Getting in touch

Write to partnerships@josephbankole.ca. Press and partnership enquiries reach the same inbox as corrections. If the question is about the app, support is the faster route.