The Standard We Work To
This page describes how SportsPersia reports: where facts come from, how Persian-language sources are handled, what we do with names and numbers, and how errors get fixed. If our work does not match what is written here, we want to hear about it.
Working From Persian-Language Sources
Most of what happens in Iranian sports is reported first in Persian. That is where we start: federation and league announcements, club statements, and the domestic sports press. Nothing is translated into an article before it is verified, and we verify against the originating body’s own announcement rather than the outlet that relayed it.
Domestic media everywhere reports transfers and appointments before they are official. We draw a clear line between a decision announced by a federation or club and one a newspaper says is coming. Translation is our own work, and where a quote has been translated the article says so, because nuance is lost in the process and readers deserve to know a rendering is involved.
Names and Transliteration
There is no single correct way to write a Persian name in the Latin alphabet. We follow one internal standard for consistency across the archive, with one overriding exception: if an athlete has an established spelling on a team sheet, a competition entry list or their own public accounts, that spelling wins. Where a name is commonly seen in two forms, we give the alternate on first mention so that searches find the piece. Corrections to spellings are welcome and are applied across every article, not only the one you flagged.
Statistics and Records
Figures come from the competent competition body first: the league, the continental confederation, the international federation, or the organizing committee of the event. Where domestic figures differ between sources, which happens, we check at least two, state which one we are using, and note the discrepancy rather than hiding it.
Every cumulative or advanced statistic carries the date it was taken, because a figure that was true in March is not true in May. Marks described as national or world records are attributed to the body that ratifies them, since an unratified mark is not a record.
Athlete Profiles
A profile covers a competitive career: results, clubs, weight classes, coaches, injuries that affected availability, and the context that explains the arc of it. It does not cover family, relationships, religious practice or private life, and we do not speculate about an athlete’s residency, citizenship applications or personal safety. Where an athlete has publicly discussed something themselves, we may report what they said, attributed to where they said it.
Politics, Sanctions and Sports
Iranian sports do not exist in a vacuum. International sanctions affect transfers, payments, sponsorship, equipment and the ability of teams to travel, and federation decisions sometimes have consequences well beyond a result. Where those factors explain something that happened on the field, we report them as facts of the environment, sourced and dated. We report what a governing body decided and the reason it gave. We do not take a position on the underlying policy, and readers can form their own view.
Women’s Sports
We cover women’s competitions as sports coverage: results, selections, qualification, and the athletes themselves. Rules on participation, competition access and dress differ from those in other countries and change over time. When they change we report the change and attribute it to the body that made it.
Anti-Doping and Disciplinary Cases
We report anti-doping and disciplinary matters after a decision by the competent body, naming that body and the stage the case has reached. We do not publish untested allegations, and we report the outcome of an appeal with the same prominence as the original finding.
Photographs, Video and Rights
Match footage is exclusively licensed and we do not host, re-upload or mirror it. Video appears on our pages only through official embeds served by the rights holder or broadcaster on their own terms. Photographs are used under license or supplied through official channels and credited as the license requires. Athlete images illustrate reporting; they are never used to suggest that anyone endorses this site or an advertiser. Rights holders can write to [email protected] with the page URL and the asset, and well-founded notices are acted on quickly.
Corrections
- Typos, formatting and dead links are fixed without a note.
- Factual errors — a score, a date, a statistic, a name, an attribution — are corrected in the text with a dated note at the foot of the article recording what it previously said.
- Where the central claim of an article does not survive scrutiny, the article stays online carrying a retraction notice explaining what was wrong. We do not delete pieces to make mistakes disappear.
Send corrections to [email protected], subject line CORRECTION.
Advertising and Independence
Advertising funds this site and has no bearing on its content. Advertisers do not see copy before publication, cannot commission or suppress coverage, and are not notified when a story concerns them. Any article that is paid for, produced in partnership, or contains commission-earning links carries a label above the first paragraph and is excluded from any ranking or selection we publish.
Health and Betting Content
Articles about injuries, nutrition and conditioning summarize general principles and are not medical advice. Articles about betting markets describe how those markets work and are not tips. Both limits are set out in the Disclaimer.