Editorial Policy
How reports are selected, attributed, reviewed, updated and separated from confirmed transfers.
Selection and verification
Almost Signed prioritises material football transfer developments from identifiable original reporting, verified official channels and specialist reporters. A transfer article must identify the player, current club, linked club, transfer direction and source before it can be published.
Source before speed
We seek the earliest identifiable report, link to original reporting where available and distinguish independent confirmation from repetition. Several outlets repeating one claim do not count as several independent sources.
Single-source reports
A single-source claim may be covered when the source is identifiable and the wording remains explicitly attributed. It cannot be presented as an agreement or official outcome without evidence that supports that stage.
Headline rules
“Interest”, “talks”, “bid”, “agreement”, “medical” and “official” are separate evidence stages. We do not use “bid” without a reported offer, “talks” without reported negotiations or “deal agreed” without agreement evidence. Certainty language must remain consistent with the sourcing and Almost Score.
Social media evidence
A social post is used only when the account owner can be identified. Club and competition accounts confirm only what they explicitly announce. Reporter posts retain the reporter’s contextual tier; screenshots, anonymous reposts and copied posts do not become independent sources.
Review and publication safeguards
Editors may review and publish a draft manually. A transfer article may also publish autonomously only when direct-source access, source Tier, database identity, transfer direction, duplicate detection, claim support, minimum depth and an independent critic all pass. Any failure keeps the article in a private review queue, and the public article states which publication path was used.
Rumours and done deals
Club interest, negotiations, agreement and official completion are different stages. A story enters Done Deals only when reliable official evidence supports completion. Related rumours are then settled or migrated rather than left in a misleading live state.
Original contribution
Articles should add source context, the significance of the development, relevant Almost Signed intelligence and a clear assessment of what remains unresolved. We do not publish an RSS description as an article.
Sponsored content
Paid or sponsored material, if introduced, will be clearly labelled and kept outside source tiers and scoring. Advertisers, data suppliers and technology providers have no control over headlines, scores, verdicts or corrections.
Updates
Material developments should update the article timestamp and, where appropriate, add an update note. Changes to an Almost Score should be reflected in the rumour timeline.
Independence
Almost Signed has no betting focus and is not an official service of any club, league, player or agent. Advertising does not determine scores or editorial conclusions.
Governance and change records
Material scoring-method changes are recorded in the Methodology Change Log. Commercial and editorial independence standards are described in the Conflict of Interest Disclosure.