CLUE XICurrent football scope
The active quiz catalogue focuses on men's senior football connected to the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1. Careers must overlap the period from 1980 onwards. A player's full senior route can include clubs and leagues outside those five competitions when those spells are part of the same career.
This is a product scope, not a claim about which football deserves attention. It keeps the first public version reviewable and gives every mode a clear definition. Women's football and additional leagues can be added later as separately checked catalogues rather than mixed into incomplete pools.
Eligibility rules by mode
The overall catalogue is larger than any individual game pool. Selection depends on the mode, career scope and recognition rating:
- Club mode: at least 20 recorded senior league appearances for the selected club within the chosen era.
- League mode: a 100-appearance threshold using the catalogue's club-to-league mappings within the chosen era.
- Nationality mode: the stored nationality and the mode's career eligibility filters determine the pool.
- ClueXI Daily: recognition of at least 75 and a 100-appearance check against clubs mapped to a Big Five league. The current day's answer is never exposed in the archive.
- Quick Play: Casual uses recognition 65–100, Football Fan 40–64, Expert 11–39 and Challenger 0–10. Expert does not use the full catalogue.
- Name Five: a current Big Five club, a nationality with at least 16 matching players, and at least one recorded senior league appearance for each accepted player. Past players and loans can qualify; Custom Club Mode's 20-appearance rule does not apply here.
Historical club-to-league mappings are not season-by-season competition records. A spell spanning promotion or relegation can therefore require a correction. Eligibility counts describe our game filters, not independently certified competition totals.
What appearances and goals mean
The clue uses senior league appearances and senior league goals. Domestic cups, continental competitions, youth matches, reserve matches, friendlies and senior internationals are not added to the club total. This boundary makes clubs and eras comparable and explains why a Clue XI number may be lower than an all-competitions total elsewhere.
Loans are recorded as separate spells and marked in the underlying data. A player who leaves and later returns can have more than one spell at the same club. Dates describe the relevant senior spell; active careers are reviewed and updated rather than assumed to be permanently current.
Sources and licensing
The large catalogue is assembled from openly reusable football facts and then normalised for the game. Current imports use English Wikipedia and Wikidata records, with source URLs retained for player identities and careers. Wikipedia text is not republished as Clue XI editorial copy. Wikidata structured data is available under CC0; Wikipedia material is governed by its applicable Creative Commons attribution and share-alike terms.
Official competition sources are used to check league history and context. Useful starting points include the Premier League history, LALIGA history, Bundesliga history, Lega Serie A and Ligue 1 records. Licensing references are available from Wikidata and the Wikimedia Foundation.
From imported to quiz-ready
Imported does not automatically mean playable. Automated filters check identity fields, dates, senior-club scope, league mappings and statistics before records enter a game pool. These checks cannot prove every historical fact is correct, and we do not claim that every imported career has been individually checked by a person.
Player reports help identify ambiguous names, missing loans and incorrect totals. A footballer can be removed from selection without deleting the source record. That allows correction without keeping a questionable clue in active play.
Current snapshot: 114,683 eligible career spells carry a verification timestamp. A stored timestamp records a processing or checking event; it is not proof of independent human verification.
The hidden recognition rating
Every eligible footballer has a 0–100 recognition score used for player selection. It estimates how likely the Clue XI audience is to know the player; it is not a rating of football ability. Famous current players tend to score highly, while less familiar historical careers sit lower.
The starting score combines career signals and editorial overrides. Completed rounds provide further evidence about difficulty, but a recognition score is still an estimate, not a guarantee that every audience will know the same names. The rules guide explains the four difficulty ranges and their scoring.
Corrections and accountability
Football data changes and sources sometimes disagree. Every game includes a reporting route, and the public bug and suggestion form accepts corrections outside a round. Helpful reports identify the player, the incorrect club or number, the expected value and a supporting source.
We review the source, update the canonical record and allow the change to flow into club counts, league counts, questions and future ClueXI Daily pages. Contact support@cluexi.co.uk for a detailed data or licensing enquiry.