Premier League has highest percentage of foreign players – UEFA report

Image: Paul Pogba, Eden Hazard and Alexis Sanchez are among the foreign stars

The Premier League has the highest percentage of foreign players of any European League, a new UEFA report has revealed.

The club licencing benchmarking report shows that 69.2 per cent of Premier League players are foreigners - significantly higher than the next competition, the Cypriot first division (57.1 per cent).

There are six other European leagues in which the majority of players are foreigners - and they include both the Championship and the Scottish Premiership.

But it is the Premier League with the greatest diversity.

There are 65 different nationalities represented in the competition with French and Spanish players the most common foreign nationalities.

Advertisement

Live Nissan Super Sunday

But the greatest concentration of foreign players in a league occurs in Portugal where just over a quarter of players in the top division are Brazilian.

Check out the full list of the top 10 leagues in Europe, ranked by percentage of foreign players…

European leagues with most foreign players

Country Competition Percentage
England Premier League 69.2%
Cyprus First Division 57.1%
Belgium Jupiler Pro League 55.8%
Portugal Liga NOS 55.6%
Italy Serie A 55.5%
England Championship 50.8%
Scotland Scottish Premiership 50.5%
Luxembourg BGL Ligue 50.4%
Germany 1. Bundesliga 49.2%
Switzerland Super League 48.6%
Outbrain