Squad stability: the European league rankings

Issue number 165 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post analyses the stability of squads in 31 top division leagues of UEFA member associations. The championships surveyed are compared according to the percentage of players who joined the first team squad of their employer team after January 1st 2016.

The record high for new players per club was recorded in Bulgaria: 64% of squad members. At the opposite end of the table, the Austrian top division is the only league where the proportion of players present in the first team squad since less than one year is lower than one third: 31%. At big-5 league level, the figures vary between 36% in Germany and 45% in both Spain and Italy.

Southern and Eastern European leagues are over-represented among those with the most unstable squads. In eleven championships, more than half of players joined the first team squad of their employer club since less than one year. Among these leagues notably are the Portuguese (56% of new players) and Turkish ones (53%).

See also Monthly Report n° 19, Demographic Study of football in Europe

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