Editorial standards
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. 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.
The one exception: REPORTED
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.
VERIFIED and RUMOUR say what they mean
On the transfer desk, every item carries a status. VERIFIED means the move is done and confirmed. RUMOUR means it is a link and not a certainty, however loudly it is being talked about. We do not blur the two to make a story sound bigger than it is. When we are not sure, the label says so.
Corrections are added, not hidden
The archive is a record, so we do not quietly rewrite it. When something changes, or we get something wrong, we add a dated note to the entry ("Update, 4 July: ...") instead of editing the original out of existence. You can still read what we first said and see what changed.
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.