At the head of the tables per position are Phil Jones (Manchester United) for centre backs, Layvin Kurzawa (Monaco) for full backs, Marco Verratti (Paris St-Germain) for defensive midfielders, Isco Alarcón (Real Madrid) for attacking midfielders and Felipe Anderson (Lazio) for forwards.

In the top-3 positions of the rankings are not only well known players such as Raphaël Varane (Real Madrid), David Alaba (Bayern Munich) or Paul Pogba (Juventus), but also less renowned talents such as José Giménez (Atlético Madrid), Ricardo Rodríguez (Wolfsburg), Granit Xhaka (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Bernardo Silva (Monaco) and Clinton N’Jie (Lyon).

The rankings are based on the CIES Football Observatory exclusive Key performance indicators in the following areas of the game:

• Shooting: ability to take advantage of goal opportunities through accurate shooting.
• Chance creation: ability to put teammates in a favourable position to strike.
• Take on: ability to create dangerous situations by successfully challenging opponents.
• Distribution: ability to keep a hold on the game through efficient passing.
• Recovery: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through proficient interception work.
• Rigour: ability to minimise goal opportunities for opponents through robust duelling.

The evolution noted for the five major European leagues since 2009/10 reflects a strong increase in the sums invested in transfer fees. While the 98 big-5 league teams spent €6.9 billion to recruit players present in their squad in 2009/10 (€70.4 million per club), this figure increased to €8.6 billion in 2014/15 (€87.7 million per club). In six seasons, the average “cost” of a squad from a transfer expenditure perspective increased by 24.5%.

Between 2009 and 2014, the fees invested in signing squad members increased particularly in the English Premier League: €2.43 to €3.43 billion (€171 million per club). The amount spent by Premier League clubs in comparison with the total for the big-5 leagues went from 35% in 2009/10 to 40% in 2014/15. The explosion of revenues from the sale of TV-rights for the period 2016-2019 will undoubtedly reinforce this process.

The minimum threshold of investments in transfer fees above which it is reasonable to expect a podium finish has strongly increased. At big-5 level, the clubs having ranked in the top three places in the 2009/10 season spent on average €189 million in signing squad members. This figure has never been as high as in the current season: €278 million (+47%). Issue number 103 of the CIES Football Observatory Big-Weekly Post also presents the data by position.

The analysis of the recipients of sums invested by big-5 league clubs in signing squad members shows that the redistributive power of the transfer market is limited. Between 2009/10 and 2014/15, 67% of transfer fees were paid out to other teams participating in the five major European championships. A record figure was incidentally measured for the last two transfer windows: 70.5%.

With a view to equality and a wish to improve competitive balance, it would be therefore useful to consider what reforms are necessary to the transfer system so as to promote solidarity. An efficient measure would be to entitle each team in which a player has passed through to a compensation for each fee paying transfer taking place over the course of the player’s professional career on a pro rata basis to the number of official matches played at the club.

We kindly invite you to read the Report to know more about this proposal.

At league level, current French Ligue 1 clubs generated the most transfer fees for youth academy players (292 million €). At the bottom end of the table is Italian Serie A. This finding reflects the low level of club-trained players in Italian top division clubs (see here).

Fees received by Southampton for the transfer of Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and Calum Chambers represent almost 40% of the total incomes of current Premier League clubs for the transfer of club-trained footballers during the last three seasons.

Southampton is an outstanding example of how youth training can constitute a key competitive advantage both sportingly and economically even in the richest league of the world.

At the head of the other rankings are Dejan Lovren (Liverpool) for rigour, Walter Gargano (Napoli) for recovery, Xabi Alonso (Bayern Munich) for distribution, Karim Bellarabi (Bayer Leverkusen) for take on and Diego Costa (Chelsea) for shooting.

The following big-5 league rookies are to be found in the top 12 positions for five out of the six areas of play taken into account:

Rigour

• Michael Keane (Burnley)
• Sergi Gómez (Celta de Vigo)
• Emiliano Velázquez (Getafe)
• Jin-Su Kim (Hoffenheim)
• Nicolás Otamendi (Valencia)
• Giancarlo González (Palermo)
• Marcos Rojo (Manchester United)

Recovery

• Wendell Nascimento (Bayer Leverkusen)
• Yeltsin Tejeda (Evian)
• Daley Blind (Manchester United)

Take on

• Sadio Mané (Southampton)
• Lucas Vázquez (Espanyol)

Chance creation

• Valentin Stocker (Hertha Berlin)
• Dušan Tadi? (Southampton)

Shooting

• Luciano Vietto (Villarreal)
• Federico Piovaccari (Eibar)
• Diafra Sakho (West Ham)

Please refer to this paper if you want to know more about the exclusive approach of the CIES Football Observatory for sustainable success.

At the head of the table is Ajax Amsterdam. The Dutch team has trained 77 players employed by the 468 teams of the 31 leagues included in the analysis. At second and third place are Partizan Belgrade (74 players) and Barcelona (57). This data confirms the outstanding know-how of these clubs in the training of youth players.

France is the most represented national association in the top 100 positions of the table: 15 clubs. This is seven more than the second and third most represented countries: Spain and the Netherlands. Conversely, there are no Turkish, Cypriot, Romanian and Norwegian teams in the top 100.

If you want to know more about the European football players’ labour market, you are kindly invited to consult our online Digital Atlas. Thank you for your interest!