Talk:Zanzibar women's national football team/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: ChrisGualtieri (talk · contribs) 16:43, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Review

Hi, LauraHale! Let's start the review!

The article is really good, but I'll be detailed in picking out some wording points that just need some fixing before we can pass this. Also one of the sources is broken, noted further on down. Other then that it is ready to pass.

The article has a couple of concerns for me. Specifically the lead. The first line, "Zanzibar women's national football team is the national football team of Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania." This seems redundant. Is the team name Zanzibar Women's National Football Team? Some minor issues exist with the third sentence of the lead, "They did play however internationally". Its awkward, but removing 'however' and changing 'play' to 'played' is probably a good option. The next point is, "Women's football in Zanzibar faces several challenges specific to Africa and their own country, including efforts to politicize the game." The wording is more like an argument rather then a statement, I'm expecting evidence to follow immediately thereafter.

I think I have fixed the lead a bit. I've also moved the sections around to put the team first and the background second. --LauraHale (talk) 05:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The section 'Background and development of women's football' is like an essay in which the first paragraph largely seems to be issues related to Africa rather then the team itself. While the issues no doubt apply it is the wording which sides to reach a point of view as a foregone conclusion. Secondly the experts you use, "According to Kuhn..." and "According to Giulianotti..." I believe their role should be defined in the text to give weight to the matter as most readers will be unfamiliar with them. After all Dr. Giulianotti is a senior lecturer, but the article he refers to his own work citing, 'Giulianotti, R. (1999) Football: a sociology of the global game, Cambridge: Polity.' Nothing wrong with it, I just would like the expansion of the reference as he refers to the instance and cites his previous work. The examples given could use some touch up wording, but nothing major.

The next section has a few problems for me, "The team is nicknamed the Women Fighters and was founded in 1988 by Nassra Juma Mohammed from Tanzania[7][13][9] at a time when there were very few women's national teams in existence.[14] The team soon played an unofficially recognised international friendly against the Swedish women's side Terresso FC, losing 0-15.[9] They do not wear a hijab or cover up as part of their kit; they receive criticism from religious leaders for playing in public while wearing shorts and jersey tops, instead of covering their bodies according to Muslim custom.[15] Mohammed remained the team's head coach As of 2011.[16]" 'The team is nicknamed' seems to bounce around with Zanzibar Women's National Football Team so often that I cannot accurately read from the text what the team is or if the team which is not officially recognized is named as such. The end of the first sentence leads to questions of 'What other Zanzibar teams? Who were they?' The second sentence has this awkward wording, "an unofficially recognised international friendly." Missing the word 'match', but it is still a mouthful in wording.

The next section goes into matters of the Zanzibar Football Association and not the team itself. The jumping off-topic makes the article particularly confusing. While I understand, or at least I think I do, that the ZFA is unrecognized, the team 'Zanzibar women's national football team' is nicknamed 'Women Fighters'. I just think the team name needs to be made more clear as it is particularly confusing to me.

I think I have reorganised things and changed the wording in other places to solve these problems. --LauraHale (talk) 06:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

One additional note. Source 21 leads to an error. [1] Probably wrong target?

Erk. That should be fixed now. --LauraHale (talk) 07:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to put this on hold and pending the changes for context and wording until the topic of the team is made clearer. Just needs some tweaking and it will pass. Everything else meets and exceeds requirements. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:43, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Looking good

The article looks much better now, it's just that last section 'Background and development of women's football' which still sticks out a bit. If you wish, I could attempt to tweak it up and if you like. That copy-paste paragraph while true, just veers off slightly-off topic, but the existing examples and other sources are really just cited examples in my eyes. I believe it would be fair to pass this; and I intend to do so in the coming day or the next. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 07:00, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

If you could, that would be great as I'm not 100% certain how to fix it. --LauraHale (talk) 21:02, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

CECAFA Cup

The CECAFA Women's Challenge Cup scheduled for October 2007 was never actually held. In fact, this tournament has been on the horizon for a number of years, but has yet to take place. The next attempt is scheduled for 2013. I think something should be mentioned in the article to reflect this, as it seems on reading the article that the tournament actually took place.

Also not mentioned here is a very important match - Zanzibar's only ever women's international match to date. 21st November 2007 in Dar es Salaam - Tanzania 17-0 Zanzibar.

In the one match that is mentioned (versus a Swedish club team), the links you give show the correct spelling of the team (Tyresö). Its correct full form should be Tyresö FF (not FC). Not sure where you got Terresso FC from.

Women Fighters

The national team is not nicknamed the "Women Fighters". This is the name of the first club team. The name of the national team is the "Zanzibar Queens". http://allafrica.com/stories/201105241757.html (I think this may be the report where you found "Terresso FC") http://joe-tznews.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/zanzibar-queens-named.html

In regard to the Swedish club team (Tyresö), that match was played against the Women Fighters club, and not against the Zanzibar women's national team.

I've also tidied up a number of other small errors, and am not sure why none of these errors have been picked up before. Mcruic (talk) 19:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Zanzibar Island

Also something that seems to have been disregarded is that Zanzibar as a political entity includes the sizeable island of Pemba, which has approximately 40% of the total area of Zanzibar and about 30% of the population. The Zanzibar Football Association controls football in both Zanzibar and Pemba. Mcruic (talk) 19:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

CAF Membership

The reference 'supporting' full CAF membership - it doesn't actually say anywhere in that article that Zanzibar is a full member of CAF. There is only a quote from one person who either mistakenly believes Zanzibar are members, or counts associate membership as being so (technically, associate membership could be construed as membership). This source: http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/sport/5685-zanzibar-malawi-share-spoils , from only a short time ago, says that they are associate members.

Also, a look at CAF's official website under "association" will show that Zanzibar is missing completely. http://www.cafonline.com/ It's not likely they would omit a full member from their own website. Also, if Zanzibar were full members of CAF, they would be eligible to compete in the continent's most important tournament for nations, the Africa Cup of Nations. A quick glance at the history books shows they have NEVER competed in this tournament (because they have not been eligible due to not being full members).

Again - adding of information without checking facts and without knowledge of the subject matter does not help improve the article. Mcruic (talk) 15:26, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Confederation

CECAFA (formally not a confederation). Is there any reason why this has found its way into the infobox under "Confederation"? CECAFA corresponds to Zone 5 of CAF, and is therefore more like a sub-confederation. http://www.cafonline.com/caf/organisation/zones Perhaps it would be better to put another heading under Confederation, namely "CAF Zone", or "Zone", so as to avoid confusion and the need for the parenthesised material after CECAFA. Mcruic (talk) 15:32, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Women Fighters (again)

"the Women Fighters, which eventually became the national team, was Zanzibar's first women's football club" Please be clear about this. Club teams and national teams are 2 separate things. For one, players not from Zanzibar can play for Zanzibar club teams (including players from Tanzania Mainland), but cannot play for the national team. This is tantamount to saying "Sheffield FC eventually became the national team of England". It's not true. The Women Fighters STILL EXISTS as a club team. There were 4 other teams that played in the last Zanzibar Women's League held a few years ago. The Women Fighters did not eventually become the national team. They were simply the first club team in Zanzibar. The national team wasn't formed until years later, when the other clubs had been established, and a proper representative team was selected from among the clubs. Again, checking of facts seems to leave a lot to be desired on this article. Mcruic (talk) 11:27, 9 June 2012 (UTC)