Brazil produces the most expatriate footballers but France leads the way with youngsters
The CIES Football Observatory has ranked the 100 national associations with the highest number of expatriate players across 135 leagues worldwide.
Expatriates are defined as footballers playing outside the association where they grew up, which they left following recruitment by a foreign club.
In total, 62,610 players who were in the first team squad of their employer club on May 1st were analysed in the study, including 14,405 expatriates.
With a record number of 1,289 expatriates, Brazil tops the list ahead of France (1,033) and Argentina (905). These three countries account for 22.4% of the total number of expatriates, reflecting their global leadership in the development of top-level footballers.
Nigeria, Japan and the United States head the rankings for the other main confederations.
The research conducted by CIES Football Observatory, presented here, also shows the number of expatriates by age group, with the French in first place for those aged 23 or under, Brazilians for those aged 23 to 26 and 27 to 30, and Argentinians for those aged over 30.
France also tops the list when it comes to the origin of expatriate players in the so-called 'top five' European leagues, proving the quality of their incredibly deep pool of talent.
The CIES Football Observatory have been collating data on the destinations of players based on the same criteria and on the same day every year since 2017, allowing them to demonstrate evolving trends in the movement of footballers.
Over that time span, the number of expatriate footballers has increased significantly across the globe. On average, a club currently employs 6.5 expatriates, up from 5.4 in 2017 - an increase of around 20%.
UEFA clubs lead the way among the continental confederations with an average of 7.8 expatriates per club. Forwards represent the most expatriates by position (30.2%). In contrast, presence is lowest amongst goalkeepers (14.9%).
As mentioned earlier, the study showed that Brazil contributes the highest number of expatriate players followed by France. Both nations have increased their expatriate representation by 5.4% since last year while third-place Argentina have increased their export number by an impressive 10.8% since 2022.
Other big movers in terms of export numbers in the last year include Sweden (16.6%), Nigeria (13.6%) and Spain (13.1%).
Since 2017, the largest increase in the number of expatriates has been measured in France. They are 265 more French footballers playing abroad this year than when the studies began. This corresponds to an increase of more than one-third.
In percentage terms, Colombia tops the charts regarding expatriate growth since 2017 with an incredible increase of 49%.
Of the 183 associations represented in 2023, only 59 have seen a decrease since 2017, with the maximum decrease recorded in Serbia (-59 expatriates). The paltry numbers of decline indicate that football migration shows no major signs of slowing down in the near future.
By and large, more and more footballers are moving abroad as indicated above. Expatriates now account for almost a quarter of active players in the 135 leagues analysed in the CIES Football Observatory's study. You can read an in-depth report on the study here.
If you are interested in exploring the movements of professional footballers globally, the CIES Football Observatory's Atlas of Migration is a fantastic graphic tool for demonstrating the migratory destinations of footballers.
The CIES Football Observatory is a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES), an independent study centre located in Neuchatel, Switzerland. The CIES Football Observatory specialises in the statistical analysis of football.