Issue number 415 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 76 leagues worldwide according to the number of cards per match handed out by referees since 1 January 2020. Bolivia’s Primera División tops the list (7.01 cards per game with 0.55 reds), while Japan’s J2 and J1 leagues are at the opposite end of the spectrum (1.99 cards per match with just 0.05 reds).

Seven Latin American leagues rank in the top nine in terms of total number of penalty cards, the only exceptions being Portugal’s Primeira and Segunda Liga. At the opposite end, Japan’s top two divisions are ahead of the top two leagues from the Netherlands. England’s Premier League Championship, League One and League Two are also at the bottom of the table, confirming the low propensity of referees across the Channel to issue penalty cards.

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Issue 414 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 126 associations worldwide according to the average age of their senior men’s national team line-ups fielded in the last year. The maximum was recorded for Kuwait (29.76 years), while the minimum was observed for Bahamas (22.82 years). In Europe, the values range from 29.40 years for Belgium to 25.07 years for Turkey.

The three lowest values among last FIFA World Cup participants were measured for the USA (24.74 years), Ecuador (25.78 years) and Ghana (25.97 years). All three selections have a bright future ahead. Overall, the share of minutes of players aged 21 or under is 10.2%, compared to 32.7% for 22-25 year olds, 31.5% for 26-29 year olds and 25.6% for 30 year olds or over.

>>> Go to the Post

The loan of players is a practice much in vogue in professional football. The 83rd edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses the characteristics of 3,178 players currently on loan in 75 leagues from 57 associations worldwide. It notably shows that loans concern 9.5% of players, with record percentages at around 20% in Italy.

The report also highlights that loans do not just involve footballers at the start of their career. Indeed, less than 30% of the total number of players on loan are 21 years of age or under, while almost half are 24 or over. This shows that loans are not uniquely used with the aim of developing the potential of young players, but also for several other reasons, such as making room in squads or signing reinforcements without paying transfer indemnities.

Many big-5 league teams figure among the clubs who loan out the most players present on the 1st March in the 75 leagues analysed. Arsenal tops the list with 25 footballers loaned out, followed by Atalanta. Inter, Brighton & Hove Albion, Manchester City, Juventus, Chelsea and Wolverhampton also are in the top 10. Generally speaking, the more competitive the club, the more it tends to loan out players to other teams.

In 63.5% of cases, the clubs where players are loaned have a lower sporting level to the owner clubs. This result indicates that loans principally serve the interests of the wealthiest teams, by allowing them to control the career of more players than they could have in their squad and develop. The club multi-ownership strategy, increasingly used by dominant teams, only reinforces this process.

>>> Full Report

Issue number 413 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 100 clubs in the world according to the estimated value of transfer rights held on players in the squad, on loan to other teams or sold with a sell-on percentage. Manchester City top the list with the ownership of transfer rights on no less than 46 players for a total estimated value of €1.46 billion.

Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid complete the podium, ahead of three other English teams: Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. With transfer rights held on players corresponding to €264 million, Brazil’s Flamengo are the highest ranked non-European club. More information on the CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model for estimating the transfer value of professional football players is available in this scientific paper.

>>> TOP 100

Issue 412 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses WyScout data on domestic league assists made by players in 75 championships around the world over the last 365 days. By weighting the number of assists with the sporting coefficient of the matches played, Kevin De Bruyne comes out on top ahead of Ousmane Dembélé and Lionel Messi.

With 12 assists and a weighted score of 13.8, which puts him in sixth place overall, Dejan Kulusevski tops the list among U23 players. Sebastián Villa (Boca Juniors) is the top ranked player currently active in a South American league. In purely numerical terms, without weighting assists by the sporting level of the matches played, with 19 assists in last year domestic league matches, three players are at the top: Dušan Tadić (AFC Ajax), Ahmed Sayed ‘Zizo’ (Zamalek SC) and Emil Hansson (Heracles).

>>> Top 100 assistmen worldwide

The 411th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the teams currently playing in 75 leagues around the world according to the number of different players fielded in domestic league matches over the last five years. The top three most stable teams are Sweden’s Halmstads BK (44 footballers), Manchester City (47) and Athletic Club (49), with the Brazilians of Ponte Preta (168) at the opposite end. 

>>> Access the Post

The 410th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the teams in 52 leagues around the world according to the current season’s ratio between fouls committed and suffered. In the five major European championships, according to the InStat/Wyscout data, the values range from a ratio of 1.49 for Manchester United to 0.68 for Real Madrid.

By league, the highest number of fouls per match was recorded in the Serbian top division (30.3) and the Portuguese second one (30.2). At the other end of the scale are the Danish and Dutch top tiers (19.3 in both cases).

>>> Go to the Post

The CIES Football Observatory research team is pleased to announce the publication of a ground-breaking report that reveals for the first time the inflation of player prices. Over the last decade, player prices have increased at an annual rate of 9%. A footballer paid €1 million in 2013/14 now costs €2.16 million (+116%).

The prices of players recruited by English Premier League clubs have risen more sharply than those of footballers hired by teams outside this competition: on average +12.2% per year compared to +8.4%. Inflation was also particularly marked for centre backs (+12.5% per annum), full backs (+11.1%), as well as for players aged 21 or under (+12.7%).

Overall, all else being equal, player prices increased at an annual rate of 13.8% between the 2013/14 and 2019/20 seasons, and then by -0.2% in the three seasons following the pandemic. However, after falling sharply in 2021/22, player prices resumed their growth in 2022/23, suggesting a rapid return to record levels.

In terms of investment volume, the total of €9.12 billion measured in 2022/23 is the second highest since the record season of 2019/2020. The rebound in 2021/22 from the sharp decline in the pandemic-affected 2020/21 season has thus continued into the current season, with even a new record for a winter transfer window in January 2023, largely driven by Premier League teams’ spending.

>>> Access the Report

Issue number 409 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams worldwide according to the total estimated transfer value of their youth academy graduates (at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21) active in more than 50 professional leagues. SL Benfica tops the table with a total academy graduates’ value of €670 million spread between 104 players, of which €151m for 20 footballers whose transfer rights are still owned by the Portuguese team. Chelsea and Barcelona round up the podium, while three Brazilian teams are in the top 10.

Transfer values were assessed through a statistical model exclusively developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. A toolkit developed in association with Wyscout available on subscription notably includes the estimates for >30,000 players from 75 leagues worldwide. More information and a free trial access are available on demand.

>>> Top 100 academies

The 408th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the net spending (including add-ons) for transfers concluded over the last five seasons by the 100 clubs with the highest volume of trade. Chelsea has the most negative balance with a deficit of €749m, of which a record €620m during the current season, ahead of Manchester United (-€670m) and Arsenal (-€544m). Ninth-placed Juventus has the biggest deficit among non-English clubs (-€337m). Benfica tops the list of positive balances with net revenues of €369m, including €157m in the current season, notably thanks to the record transfer of Enzo Fernández to Chelsea.

Acess the full data per club and season

Visit our website for more exclusive football stats

Issue 407 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the players who have performed best in the area of take on over the past year on the basis of an exclusive index based on 100 taking into account the frequency of successful dribbles and crosses, playing time, as well as the sporting level of matches played. Ousmane Dembélé tops the list among attacking players and João Cancelo among defending ones.

Vinícius Júnior and Kevin De Bruyne round up the podium for offensive players. Seventh overall, Kylian Mbappé is the highest-ranked footballer among those who played primarily in the centre of the attack. Three players who have not yet turned 20 appear in the top 100: Jude Bellingham, Ângelo Gabriel (Santos FC) and Jamal Musiala. The evergreen Croatian Luka Modrić is the oldest player on the list, ahead of Salernitana’s Antonio Candreva.

Among defensive players, João Cancelo outranks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Javi Galan (Celta Vigo). Four players aged 23 or under are in the top ten: Pedro Porro (fourth), Reece James (eighth), Nuno Tavares (ninth) and Alphonso Davies (tenth). The French Malo Gusto and Quentin Merlin are the youngest footballers in the top 100, while Jesús Navas and the fresh América Mineiro recruit Nino Paraíba are the oldest.

For more information on the different areas of play considered by the CIES Football Observatory for the analysis of players’ technical performance (InStat/Hudl data), please refer to this Monthly Report.

>>> Tops 100

Issue 406 of the CIES Football Observatory’s Weekly Post presents the 50 clubs that spent the most on the player market during the current and last summer’s transfer windows. Chelsea crushes the competition with €555 million invested (including add-ons) to acquire 15 footballers. This is more than double the amount spent by the second biggest spender: Manchester United (€272 million for 7 players).

West Ham United, Nottingham Forest and Wolverhampton Wanderers complete an all-English top five. All twenty Premier League teams but Leicester City (51st), feature in the top 50, reflecting the increasingly obvious economic dominance of the English top flight. Barcelona is ahead of Paris St-Germain among non-Premier League teams, AFC Ajax tops the table for clubs outside of the big-5, while Flamengo is the only non-European team in the top 50.

Per league, the English top division is far above any other championship with a staggering €3.19 billion total fee expenditure (add-ons included). This is almost four times more than the amount invested by the teams in the second biggest spending league: the Italian Serie A (€826 m). The French Ligue 1 (€726 m) completes the podium ahead of the Spanish Liga (€708 m) and the German Bundesliga (€689 m). The sixth ranked competition, the Dutch Eredivisie, is at a much lower level (€228 m).

>>> Top 50

The 405th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 417 teams from 27 European top divisions according to the percentage of minutes played by club-trained footballers, i.e. present for at least three years between the seasons of their 15th and 21st birthdays. The highest proportions were measured for the Slovakians of MŠK Žilina in total (73.3% of minutes by 16 players trained) and Athletic Club in the big-5 (56.6%; 13).

Club-trained footballers played a majority of minutes for only one other team in the five major leagues: Olympique Lyonnais (52.2%; 11 "trained"). Real Sociedad rounds out the podium for the big-5 (40.2%). Chelsea and Brighton & Hove top the list in the English Premier League (26.9%), SC Freiburg in the German Bundesliga (31.0%), AS Roma in Italian Serie A (17.8%), as well as SL Benfica in the Portuguese Primeira Liga (25.8%).

Thirty-three teams are at the bottom of the ranking with no player trained fielded in current season’s domestic league matches. Among them are 11 big-5 league clubs: one from Ligue 1 (Olympique de Marseille), one from the Premier League (Brentford FC), one from the Bundesliga (Union Berlin), three from the Liga (Cádiz, Getafe and Almería), and five from Serie A (Bologna, Lecce, Udinese, Cremonese and Salernitana). The data by league is available in the Demographic Atlas.

>>> Go to the Post

>>> Go to the Atlas

Issue number 404 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents sixty players whose contracts end next June with the highest Impact Score in their age group. The French Evan N’Dicka (Eintracht Frankfurt) tops the list among footballers who have not yet turned 23, the Spaniard Marco Asensio (Real Madrid) for those aged between 24 and 26, as well as Adrien Rabiot (Juventus) for players between 27 and 30 years of age.

While these players can be signed without the payment of a transfer fee in six months’ time, they already represent excellent opportunities for clubs wanting to get ahead of the competition. The highest transfer value among the footballers listed was recorded for Youri Tielemans (Leceister City, €30.8m), ahead of Milan Skriniar (Inter, €30.3m), Marco Asensio (Real Madrid, €21.9m), Youssoufa Moukoko (Borussia Dortmund, €20.3m) and Adrien Rabiot (Juventus, €19.5m).

The Impact Score is a metric that is perfectly comparable between all footballers regardless of their technical characteristics, taking into account the sporting level of matches played during the last year, minutes played in official games, as well as playing performances (InStat data). This tool available for free presents the Impact Score value for players in more than 70 leagues worldwide. Under contract only until June 2023 too, Luka Modric is among the six players scoring the highest (100).

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Go to the Impact Score tool

Jude Bellingham heads the list of the 100 players worldwide with the top estimated transfer value according to the statistical model exclusively developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. His owner club, Borussia Dortmund, could potentially earn up to €208m by transferring the 19-year-old English prodigy. With Bellingham’s contract running out in June 2025, this is probably the transfer window during which the Germans could make the biggest profit.

>>> GO TO THE TOP 100 LIST

Despite relatively short contracts lasting until June 2024, Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior are in the top four (both €191m), just ahead of the English Premier League top scorer Erling Haaland (€175m). With a contract running until 2027, the latter’s value is set to rise in the coming months to approach or even surpass that of the players ranked ahead of him, including that of his Manchester City’s teammate Phil Foden (€200m), currently second.

The greatest estimated value for players outside of the big-5 was measured for Benfica’s recent World Cup winner Enzo Fernández (€80m). The estimates for all footballers in the five major European championships are available in free access here. A paper presenting the method used is also available in the peer-review and open access journal Economies. An online platform with the valuations of >30k players from 75 leagues worldwide is accessible by subscription. Do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

With a new transfer window about to open, the 81st edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report presents its exclusive approach to player scouting, bringing together in a coherent framework different and complementary information such as the footballers’ playing time, level of competition, positions, technical areas of activity, age, contract length and transfer value.

The Report identifies the 200 players - the top 10 in twenty classification categories - born in 2002 or later who have accumulated the most playing experience in the last year. The categories were determined by the players’ primary position and activity level (InStat data) in eight areas of play: three defensive (air defence, ground defence, recovery), four offensive (take on, chance creation, shooting, air attack), as well as distribution.

For each player identified, the report also presents the contractual duration with the owning club and the estimated transfer value based on the CIES Football Observatory statistical model, which has become a reference. An online platform with a wide range of player statistics from 75 leagues around the world is now also available by subscription. Do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

>>> See the Report (pdf) (online)

The following players top the list for the twenty classification categories, with club of employment and estimated transfer value:

• Goalkeeper: Maarten Vandevoordt (KRC Genk) €18.1 million
• Defensive centre back: Castello Lukeba (Olympique Lyonnais) €37.0m
• Ball-playing centre back: Josko Gvardiol (RB Leipzig) €122.4m
• Defensive left back: John Tolkin (New York RB) €5.1m
• Defensive right back: Killian Sildillia (SC Freiburg) €5.4m
• Two-way left back: Nuno Mendes (Paris St-Germain) €66.0m
• Two-way right back: Amar Dedic (RB Salzburg) €6.6m
• Attacking left back: Quentin Merlin (FC Nantes) €19.1m
• Attacking right back: Malo Gusto (Olympique Lyonnais) €17.0m
• Defensive midfielder: Pablo Maia (São Paulo FC) €10.3m
• Defensive playmaker: Pedri González (FC Barcelona) €169.8m
• Two-way midfielder: Nicola Zalewski (AS Roma) €18.7m
• Attacking playmaker: Kenneth Taylor (AFC Ajax) €32.6m
• Attacking midfielder: Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund) €211.3m
• Shot-oriented left winger: Facundo Kruspzky (free) €0.0 m
• Shot-oriented right winger: Andrés Gómez (Millonarios FC) €8.1m
• Allrounder left winger: Adam Hlozek (Bayer Leverkusen) €29.8m
• Allrounder right winger: Angsar Knauff (Eintracht Frankfurt) €15.9m
• Shot-oriented centre forward: Marcos Leonardo (Santos FC) €29.2m
• Allrounder centre forward: Rômulo Cardoso (CA Parananense) €4.4m

Issue number 402 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post pays tribute to the Argentine players who took part in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers or final tournament. Rodrigo de Paul played the most games in total: 23, including all seven in Qatar. Nicolás Otamendi, on the other hand, leads the way in terms of minutes played (2,023).

A total of 40 footballers have played during the qualifiers or the final tournament. Giovani Lo Celso played the most minutes in the qualifiers among those who did not participate in the final tournament. Enzo Fernández, on the other hand, was used the most in the final phase (563 minutes in seven games) without having played in the qualifiers.

With 14 goals, seven of them in the final tournament, Lionel Messi is the Albiceleste player who has scored the most goals on the way to Argentina’s title. That is twice as many as the second highest scorer: Lautaro Martínez (7). Julián Alvarez complete the podium with five goals, four of them in the final phase. In total, thirteen players scored the 42 Argentine goals.

Issue 401 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the clubs having trained the most players selected for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Training clubs are those where players have stayed for at least three years between the seasons of their 15th and 21st birthdays. At the top of the list are the Dutch side of AFC Ajax with eleven players trained having represented five different national teams.

Deportivo Saprissa (Costa Rica) and Al Sadd (Qatar) complete the podium with ten and nine players trained respectively, but none of whom have reached the knockout stage. The top three clubs for footballers whose teams have reached the knockout stage are AFC Ajax, Dinamo Zagreb and Sporting CP, with eight players trained in all three cases. Manchester City has trained footballers for the most national teams: six.

Six English clubs and a Welsh one are in the top 50 of the table: Manchester City (7 players trained), Liverpool (also 7), Chelsea (6), Swansea City (6), Arsenal (5), Manchester United (4) and Tottenham Hotspur (4). Produced in collaboration with FIFA’s High Performance Department, the 80th CIES Football Observatory’s Monthly Report presents more exclusive analysis on the development paths of 2022 World Cup players.

The CIES Football Observatory research group is happy to disclose the 400th edition of its Weekly Post, presenting the 50 leagues where 2022 FIFA World Cup footballers have played the most senior matches up until their 23rd birthday. The German Bundesliga leads the table with more than 5,000 games played in the competition by 99 footballers present at the World Cup, representing 25 different national teams.

More World Cup participants (110 players from 26 selections) played in the English Premier League until turning 23, but for fewer matches and minutes than footballers having developed their career in the German Bundesliga and the Spanish Liga. The English Championship is the best ranked second tier competition (seventh), while the Italian Serie A (eighth) tops the table for leagues from an association not qualified for the World Cup.

Produced in collaboration with FIFA High Performance Department, the 80th CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report presents more exclusive data on the development paths of the 2022 FIFA World Cup players. It notably shows that the latter played senior league minutes in no less than 763 teams until they turned 23, of which 26.4% below top domestic league levels. This finding reveals the importance of taking care of all the sporting and economic levels of the football ecosystem to allow players, even the most talented ones, to develop their full potential.

>>> Post n° 400

>>> Report n° 80

Issue number 399 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the World Cup teams according to the average number of minutes in official matches played in 2022 by the footballers used in the first round. Portugal leads the ranking with an average of 3,378 minutes (between 4,468 for João Cancelo and 2,205 for João Felix), reflecting the importance of the status of the Seleção’s key players within their clubs.

Portugal is ahead of Brazil and Mexico, while three Asian teams are at the bottom of the table: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran. England (seventh) is among the eleven countries whose first-round players have averaged more than 3,000 minutes in 2022, as are the other two favourites for the tournament according to our Impact Score method: France (eighth) and Spain (eleventh). Korea Republic is by far the best ranked Asian selection: ninth.

On an individual level, Canadian Red Star Belgrade goalkeeper Milan Borjan is the player with the most official minutes in 2022, while Dutch centre back Virgil van Dijk has the highest value for an outfield player: 5,160 minutes. Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur) was the most used English national team player in 2022 (4,830 minutes), while Callum Wilson (Newcastle United) is at the opposite end of the spectrum (only 997 minutes).

>>> Full rankings

The CIES Football Observatory research team used its Impact Score metrics to rank the FIFA World Cup 2022 teams from that reuniting the highest rated players to the selection relying on the lowest rated ones. Brazil tops the table by considering both all footballers selected and the eleven with the greatest Impact Score (one goalkeeper and ten outfield players). Costa Rica and Qatar are at the opposite end. The data for all teams is available in the 398th Weekly Post.

Spain are ranked behind Brazil when all the players selected are taken into consideration, while France would be the second main favourite if the average Impact Score of the ten best rated outfield players and goalkeeper is considered. England, Portugal and Germany also have the players to dream of winning the most coveted trophy. Argentina, the Netherlands, Belgium and Croatia are the principal outsiders.

The Impact Score is calculated from the average sporting level of matches in which players participated over the last 365 days, official game minutes played during the same time range and pitch performance compared to both teammates and opponents, as well as with respect to players with the same technical profile as per the role-based approach also freshly developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. The Impact Score for players from more than 70 leagues worldwide is available here.

The 831 players of the FIFA 2022 World Cup have a total estimated transfer value of €15 billion. By selection, the values range from as little as €23 million for the 26 footballers in the Costa Rica’s squad to a maximum of €1.5 billion for the players called up by England. Issue 397 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the data for all the national teams.

Borussia Dortmund’s young crack Jude Bellingham has the top estimated transfer value among all World Cup players: €202m. Brazil has the second highest valued squad of the World Cup, with a total transfer value of €1.45 billion and a maximum for the decisive scorer of the last Champions League final, Real Madrid’s Vinícius Junior: € 200m (second highest value overall).

France is the third nation with the highest estimated transfer value: €1.34 billion. Despite a contract with Paris St-Germain running only until 2024, Kylian Mbappé is the top valued player of the French national team: €185m. The transfer values of all footballers from the five major European leagues are available here for free. This scientific paper presents the CIES Football Observatory’s statistical approach to estimating player values.

>>> Weekly Post

The CIES Football Observatory research group is happy to disclose its 79th Monthly Report on the demographic profile of players, clubs and leagues across Europe. In 2022, new records were set with regard to the percentage of expatriate footballers (42.3%) and, negatively, for the proportion of club-trained players (17.0%). In both cases, the trend reversal observed following the pandemic was short-lived.

The sample analysed includes 12,281 players active in 477 clubs of 31 top divisions of UEFA member associations. The typical portrait of the footballer in the sample is that of a man aged 26, with a height of just over 182 cm, present in the first team squad of his employer club for two years and three months and having in almost six cases out of ten already lived an experience abroad during his career.

A new record for the percentage of expatriate players was notably broken in the Italian Serie A (61.7%). The Italian top division also holds the negative record for the percentage of club-trained players in squads: 8.4%. These findings reflect the lack of importance given to training in the country, which reduces the poolof talents with a sufficient level to play at the highest level.

Clubs in three of the five major leagues have the most stable squads: the English Premier League with a player’s average tenure in the first team squad of his employer club of 3.1 years, the German Bundesliga (3.0 years) and the Spanish Liga (2.9 years). The longest player’s average tenure per club was recorded for Champions League title holders Real Madrid (5.1 years), which confirms the importance of long-term planning for optimum results.

>>> Access all Monthly Reports

The 396th CIES Football Weekly Post presents the 100 players outside the big-5 who have not yet turned 25 with the highest estimated transfer value. Three players stand out with values of around €60 million: Benfica’s Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernández, PSV Eindhoven’s Dutch striker Cody Gakpo and Porto’s Portuguese goalkeeper Diogo Costa.

Only one other player outside the big-5 has an estimated value of more than €50 million: Portuguese centre back Gonçalo Inacio (Sporting CP). The highest transfer values for footballers playing outside of Europe were recorded for Brazilians: Yuri Alberto (Corinthians, €30m), Danilo Oliveira (Palmeiras, €29m) and Marcos Leonardo (Santos, €28m). Fifteen leagues are represented in the top 100, with a maximum of 21 players for the Dutch Eredivisie.

The values were estimated on the basis of a statistical model developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team from almost 5,000 paid transfers concluded over the last decade. A scientific article explaining the approach is available in open access. Estimates for more than 15,000 players from about 50 leagues worldwide are available through a paying platform. Do not hesitate to contact us about this.