Corrections

Last updated: May 2026

This page describes how Football Insider handles editorial errors. The page is referenced by the Site’s NewsMediaOrganization schema as the correctionsPolicy for Trust Project transparency. Football news has direct factual stakes (player names, transfer fees, match results, statistical figures) where errors are checkable and corrections matter.

How errors are identified

Errors come to our attention through several channels:

• Reader reports. Most errors are caught by attentive readers. The reporting address is editor [at] footballinsider [punto] store. We respond to every credible report.
• Subject-of-article reports. Where a player, agent, club, or league representative believes a report is incorrect, we welcome the contact and treat it like any other correction report.
• Internal review. Periodic content audits review evergreen pieces for currency. Manager changes, ownership changes, regulatory updates can render older articles stale.
• Source updates. Where an article cites a source whose own reporting is later corrected or retracted, our article needs review.
• External reports. Where third parties (other publishers, regulators, sports authorities) raise factual concerns, the concerns are reviewed.

Severity classification

Critical errors

Errors that materially mislead readers about football facts where the truth is verifiable and the misstatement is substantive. Examples: misreporting a transfer-fee figure; misattributing a goal to the wrong scorer; misreporting a manager’s name or club affiliation; reporting an injury that did not occur; treating a “speculative” report as “confirmed.”

Response standard:

• Correction within 24 hours of identification.
• Prominent correction notice at the top of the article describing what was wrong and what is now correct.
• Original (incorrect) text preserved in the version history.
• If the article was widely shared with the incorrect figure (large social-media reach, syndicated by aggregators), a separate correction notice may be issued.
• Editorial review of the article’s research and fact-check process to identify how the error got through.

Substantive errors

Errors that do not rise to critical but materially affect accuracy or framing. Examples: outdated statistical figure (correct as of an earlier date but now stale); regulatory development covered correctly but where a subsequent development changes the picture; tactical-analysis claim about a manager’s setup where the manager has since changed approach.

Response standard:

• Correction within 7 days of identification.
• Correction notice in the article’s editorial note or footer.
• Version history preserved.
• For evergreen articles where the issue is currency rather than original error, “Last updated” date refreshed.

Minor errors

Typos, formatting issues, broken links, slight phrasing problems that do not affect meaning, citation-style inconsistencies. Production-level rather than substantive errors.

Response standard: fixed when noticed. Not separately documented unless a pattern suggests a process issue.

Confidence-tier corrections

Football Insider uses confidence-tier framing for transfer reports and other speculation-prone content (see Our Approach). A specific category of correction applies when a confidence claim turns out wrong:

• If a story we labeled “strongly reported” or “reported” turned out untrue, we publish a correction explaining what we got wrong.
• Story-development followups (where a “speculative” story became confirmed, or a “reported” story collapsed) are handled with new articles or updates rather than corrections.
• Where we labeled something with too much confidence given the source quality at the time, that is itself a correctable error and we treat it as such.

AI-assisted-content corrections

Articles produced through the FI Quality Booster workflow (see AI Usage Policy) get the same correction treatment as any other article. Errors that originated in the AI draft and survived editorial review are corrected through the standard process. Where the error pattern suggests the AI-assisted workflow itself needs improvement (recurring AI-generated factual error type), the workflow is reviewed and tightened.

Retractions

In rare cases, an article is retracted entirely rather than corrected. Retraction is reserved for articles that:

• Were fundamentally misconceived from the start (the topic should not have been covered, or the framing was so wrong that piecemeal correction is inadequate).
• Contain critical errors that cannot be cleanly corrected without replacing most of the article.
• Were based on a primary source that was later revealed to be fabricated or unreliable.
• Are no longer compatible with our editorial standards after a standards update.

Retracted articles are removed from public view at the original URL and replaced with a retraction notice explaining what was retracted and why. The original is preserved internally for record-keeping.

Version history

Substantive articles maintain a version history accessible from the article’s editorial note. The history records original publication date, each substantive revision with date and short description, and the “Last reviewed” date separately tracked from “Last updated” so readers can distinguish active editorial revision from routine currency review.

Process review for systemic errors

Where the same type of error occurs in multiple articles, or where the pattern suggests a process issue, we conduct a process review: how did the error get past fact-check, was source quality inadequate, was editorial review missing the relevant check, is the documentation specific enough to catch this error category. Process changes are added to How We Cover Football and to the AI workflow if applicable.

What we do not do

• We do not silently edit articles for substantive changes without acknowledgment.
• We do not retroactively change framing to align with later positions; if our position has changed, we say so.
• We do not selectively correct based on the political or commercial sensitivity of the subject; the standard applies uniformly.
• We do not “unpublish” articles to avoid acknowledging error.
• We do not respond to coordinated complaint campaigns by removing accurate, fairly-framed reporting.

How to report an error

Email editor [at] footballinsider [punto] store with subject line Correction. Include:

• The URL of the article.
• What you believe is incorrect (the specific claim, ideally quoted).
• Why you believe it is incorrect, ideally with a source we can verify.

We acknowledge correction reports within 7 days. The substantive response (correction made; correction declined with explanation; further investigation underway) follows within the timelines described above based on severity.

We do not penalize good-faith correction reports that turn out unfounded; if you think you’ve spotted an error, the right action is to tell us.

Related pages: Editorial Standards · How We Cover Football · Sources Policy · Fact-Checking · Feedback