Sport 2: Football Results, Competitions

Results and Tables

Football tables and results should be transmitted together in a separate despatch from the match report. Like any other tabulated material, they must begin and end with the sign <#>

Results must read:

<#>

	`Arsenal 2`	`Aston Villa 1`
	`Liverpool 4`	`Manchester United 2`

<#>

No commas.

Tables must read:
<#>

	`P`	`W`	`D`	`L`	`GF`	`GA`	`P`
`Borussia Dortmund`	`18`	`11`	`4`	`3`	`39`	`19`	`37`
`Bayern Munich`	`17`	`10`	`6`	`1`	`27`	`14`	`36`

<#>

No hyphens. Align numbers right.
No ordinal numbers on the left.
No "goal difference" column (which is usual in German results).
The letters in the table stand for: matches played, won, drawn, lost, goals for and against, points. Those letters alone are acceptable, though a paragraph listing these words is helpful.

Some of our stringers are putting goalscorers' names in with the results which is helpful.
Whether the word "standings" or "table" is used in the headline and whether or not it is capped does not matter.
See separate pages for examples of Football Slugs and the complete Results Headers. Note the <#> symbol before and after tabulated material: see Typography.

Names of Football Competitions

The cross-border club competitions we are most concerned with are:

The European Champions League (commonly known as the Champions League.)
The UEFA Cup (from the French acronym for European Union of Football Associations - there is no need to spell it out). Club names are listed elsewhere in this Style Guide.

The main competitions between national teams are the World Cup and the European Championships (not the "Nations Cup") which are commonly known as Euro followed by the year they are played, Euro 2008.
In group qualification matches, refer to Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 etc.

The Bundesliga is the German first division and is referred to as the German Bundesliga.

For football played in the United States use the word "soccer" to distinguish from American football.

Style Guide Home | Index of Key Words | The Club Names