Are International Players Making the League Better?
Football has truly become a global sport, attracting countless fans and betting sites. Clubs from the best leagues of today have more non-native players than ever before. As the popularity of football started to spread on all continents, the talents can now be found in all corners of the globe. Wealthy European teams seem to be keen on bringing them over and offering them lucrative contracts.
English Premier League follows this trend, and you may notice that some of its best players are not from England or even from the UK. Nevertheless, the popularity of the league doesn’t seem to be affected.
Are Home-Grown Players Secondary to Foreign Ones?
A Premier League rule states that a maximum of 17 foreign players can be on a squad that consists of 25 footballers. There are currently 262 international players in the Premier League, which is slightly more than 50% of the entire league.
More so, English players spend only around 30% of the total minutes playing on the pitch. Not so long ago, the number of non-English footballers was significantly smaller and homegrown footballers were accounting for the big majority of the competition.
However, it’s not only about the number of foreign players but about their roles in the teams as well. Some of the best in the league are usually from abroad, apart from a few exceptions.
England finished fourth at the FIFA World Cup in Russia last year, which was the national team’s biggest success in the competition since 1990. The entire squad consisted of players from Premier League.
So, it seems a little intriguing as to why the league relies so much on players who are not English.
Reaching for the Global Market
Football is a sport, but it’s also business and entertainment. Clubs are constantly looking to expand the fan base outside of their home country to sell more merchandise.
Premier League is now being watched worldwide, and while it has a lot to do with the overall quality of the game, it’s also about the fact that people like watching a team which consists of players from their own country.
Are International Players Making the League Better?
Particular studies have shown that there are some correlations between having more foreign players on a team and performing better. However, this can also be due to the fact that the wealthier teams have more money to spend on good international players, so they will be dominant either way.
Nevertheless, foreign players do in fact create more goal opportunities for a team than English ones, but only slightly. Even if a team consisted of all foreigners, more success wouldn’t be guaranteed.
Interestingly enough, international players seem to perform worse on the defensive end, and some believe that this can be due to language barriers.