Our editorial mission
FootyGazette is an independent football publication. We exist to cover the men’s and women’s game globally with the analytical seriousness it deserves and the editorial independence it rarely receives. We are not a broadcaster, not a league partner, and not an extension of any club’s media operation. No competition, federation, or rights-holder has any say in what we publish or how we publish it.
We write for readers who want to understand football, not be sold it. That means tactical analysis that respects the reader’s intelligence, business reporting that does not flinch from the numbers, and cultural coverage that does not stop at the Channel or the Atlantic. It also means accepting the obligations that come with that ambition: rigorous sourcing, transparent corrections, honest disclosure of how we work, and a refusal to publish anything we cannot stand behind.
Sourcing standards
FootyGazette operates a minimum three-source standard for reported news. Where a story turns on a specific factual claim — a transfer fee, a contract clause, a regulatory decision, a quote, a meeting that took place — we require that claim to be independently confirmed by at least three sources with direct knowledge before we publish it as fact. Where we cannot reach that threshold but the story is in the public interest and the available evidence is strong, we publish what we have and we say what we do not yet have.
We prefer named sources to anonymous ones, and we ask sources to go on the record wherever the law, their employment, and their personal safety allow it. Where we use anonymous sources, we explain why anonymity was granted, we describe the source’s relationship to the story in as much detail as protection allows, and we corroborate their account against documentary evidence or independent sources before publication. We do not grant anonymity to attack named individuals without giving those individuals a meaningful right of reply.
Rumours are not facts and we do not report them as such. Where we cover the rumour cycle — and we do, because it is part of the modern game — we report rumours as rumours, attribute them to their original source, and assess their plausibility on the available evidence. We do not launder a single tweet into a paragraph of inevitability.
Our fact-checking process runs in two passes: an internal check by a second member of the editorial team before publication, and a post-publication review of all reported claims against primary documents where they exist. Errors found at either stage are corrected under the policy below.
Use of AI tools
FootyGazette uses AI-assisted research, drafting, and editing tools as part of its production process. We are transparent about this because we believe readers are entitled to know how the journalism they read is made. Every article published on this site is reviewed, edited, and signed off by a named member of the editorial team before publication. The byline on a FootyGazette article is the person who is responsible for it.
We use AI tools to synthesise public reporting from multiple sources, to draft initial article structure, to translate source material from Spanish, Portuguese, French, and other languages our writers read, to check facts against primary documents, and to assist with copy-editing and accessibility tasks such as alt text and caption generation. These uses are editorial productivity tools. They do not replace journalism; they sit underneath it.
We do not use AI to fabricate quotes. We do not use AI to invent statistics, match events, transfer fees, or any other factual claim. We do not generate images of real players, managers, officials, or any identifiable person. We do not publish AI-generated commentary attributed to a human byline. Where an article relies on AI-assisted research in a way that meaningfully shapes its conclusions, we say so in the piece. Where we run a piece that is, in any sense, generated rather than written, we will label it clearly and we will not byline it to a person.
Corrections policy
FootyGazette corrects errors. We do not silently rewrite published articles, and we do not unpublish work without disclosing that we have done so.
Every correction is logged at the bottom of the corrected article with a timestamp, a description of what was wrong, and a description of what we have changed. Where an error is material — that is, where it affects the central claim of a piece, the standing of a named individual, or the reader’s reasonable understanding of an event — the correction is also published in the next edition of our newsletter and pinned to our editorial standards changelog for thirty days.
Where an article is taken down rather than corrected, the URL returns a public note explaining that the piece has been withdrawn and why. We do not 404 our mistakes. Readers who believe we have made an error are invited to contact [email protected]; we respond to all good-faith correction requests within forty-eight hours, and we investigate every claim of factual inaccuracy regardless of its source.
Funding and affiliate disclosure
FootyGazette is funded primarily by reader subscriptions through our /watch/ product, by direct reader support, and by clearly labelled sponsored content. We do not sell our readers’ data, and our editorial coverage is not influenced by any advertiser, sponsor, or commercial partner.
We do not accept payments — financial or otherwise — in exchange for editorial coverage. We do not take kickbacks from streaming services, rights-holders, betting operators, or any other commercial third party in return for recommending their products. Where we recommend a service — a streaming provider, a piece of analysis software, a book, a podcast — we say in the piece why we recommend it, and we disclose any commercial relationship that exists between us and the provider. Sponsored content is labelled as such at the top of the article, in the URL slug, and in the article’s structured data. It is written or reviewed to the same factual standards as the rest of our work, but it is not editorial and it never carries a journalist’s byline as if it were.
Anti-clickbait commitment
FootyGazette commits to its readers that we will not write misleading headlines, manufacture controversy, traffic in ragebait, generate AI thumbnails depicting real footballers, or invent quotes. We will not publish a headline whose premise the article then walks back. We will not write a question-mark headline whose answer is no. We will not turn a player’s private life into copy without a clear public-interest justification, and we will not run a story we would not be willing to defend, in person, to its subject. This is the floor of how we treat our readers, not the ceiling.
Contact
Editorial concerns, correction requests, and right-of-reply enquiries should be addressed to [email protected]. Legal notices, takedown requests, and rights enquiries go to [email protected]. Data protection and privacy enquiries go to [email protected]. Reader support, subscription questions, and account help go to [email protected].
We commit to a forty-eight hour response service-level on all editorial concerns received at [email protected]. Legal correspondence is acknowledged on receipt and substantively answered within five working days. We treat every contact from a reader as an opportunity to do our job better, and we read all of them.
