The presence of expatriate players in the 31 top division leagues in Europe reached a new record of 38.7 percent in 2016, according to the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report for November published Monday. That figure was up from 34.8% in 2009, CIES said, adding that the presence of club-trained players continues to decrease: from 23.0% in 2009 to 19.2% in 2016.
The league with the highest percentage of expatriates, defined as footballers playing outside of the country where they started playing and from where they departed following recruitment by a club overseas, was in Cyprus, where foreigners represent 65.4% of the players. The Cypriot league was followed by Turkey (62.0%), England (61.8%), Belgium (60.1%) and Italy (56.2%), while Serbia was at the bottom of the list with 16.1%.
Slovakia heads the list of leagues with the highest number of club-trained players in Europe with 31.5%, followed by Ukraine (30.6%) and the Czech Republic (28.6%). Bottom of that list comes Turkey (6.9%), with a club-trained player described as one having played at least three seasons between 15 and 21 years of age in his employer team.