The CIES Football Observatory research team is pleased to announce the publication of a ground-breaking report that reveals for the first time the inflation of player prices. Over the last decade, player prices have increased at an annual rate of 9%. A footballer paid €1 million in 2013/14 now costs €2.16 million (+116%).

The prices of players recruited by English Premier League clubs have risen more sharply than those of footballers hired by teams outside this competition: on average +12.2% per year compared to +8.4%. Inflation was also particularly marked for centre backs (+12.5% per annum), full backs (+11.1%), as well as for players aged 21 or under (+12.7%).

Overall, all else being equal, player prices increased at an annual rate of 13.8% between the 2013/14 and 2019/20 seasons, and then by -0.2% in the three seasons following the pandemic. However, after falling sharply in 2021/22, player prices resumed their growth in 2022/23, suggesting a rapid return to record levels.

In terms of investment volume, the total of €9.12 billion measured in 2022/23 is the second highest since the record season of 2019/2020. The rebound in 2021/22 from the sharp decline in the pandemic-affected 2020/21 season has thus continued into the current season, with even a new record for a winter transfer window in January 2023, largely driven by Premier League teams’ spending.

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Issue number 409 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams worldwide according to the total estimated transfer value of their youth academy graduates (at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21) active in more than 50 professional leagues. SL Benfica tops the table with a total academy graduates’ value of €670 million spread between 104 players, of which €151m for 20 footballers whose transfer rights are still owned by the Portuguese team. Chelsea and Barcelona round up the podium, while three Brazilian teams are in the top 10.

Transfer values were assessed through a statistical model exclusively developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team. A toolkit developed in association with Wyscout available on subscription notably includes the estimates for >30,000 players from 75 leagues worldwide. More information and a free trial access are available on demand.

>>> Top 100 academies

The 408th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the net spending (including add-ons) for transfers concluded over the last five seasons by the 100 clubs with the highest volume of trade. Chelsea has the most negative balance with a deficit of €749m, of which a record €620m during the current season, ahead of Manchester United (-€670m) and Arsenal (-€544m). Ninth-placed Juventus has the biggest deficit among non-English clubs (-€337m). Benfica tops the list of positive balances with net revenues of €369m, including €157m in the current season, notably thanks to the record transfer of Enzo Fernández to Chelsea.

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Issue 407 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the players who have performed best in the area of take on over the past year on the basis of an exclusive index based on 100 taking into account the frequency of successful dribbles and crosses, playing time, as well as the sporting level of matches played. Ousmane Dembélé tops the list among attacking players and João Cancelo among defending ones.

Vinícius Júnior and Kevin De Bruyne round up the podium for offensive players. Seventh overall, Kylian Mbappé is the highest-ranked footballer among those who played primarily in the centre of the attack. Three players who have not yet turned 20 appear in the top 100: Jude Bellingham, Ângelo Gabriel (Santos FC) and Jamal Musiala. The evergreen Croatian Luka Modrić is the oldest player on the list, ahead of Salernitana’s Antonio Candreva.

Among defensive players, João Cancelo outranks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Javi Galan (Celta Vigo). Four players aged 23 or under are in the top ten: Pedro Porro (fourth), Reece James (eighth), Nuno Tavares (ninth) and Alphonso Davies (tenth). The French Malo Gusto and Quentin Merlin are the youngest footballers in the top 100, while Jesús Navas and the fresh América Mineiro recruit Nino Paraíba are the oldest.

For more information on the different areas of play considered by the CIES Football Observatory for the analysis of players’ technical performance (InStat/Hudl data), please refer to this Monthly Report.

>>> Tops 100

Issue 406 of the CIES Football Observatory’s Weekly Post presents the 50 clubs that spent the most on the player market during the current and last summer’s transfer windows. Chelsea crushes the competition with €555 million invested (including add-ons) to acquire 15 footballers. This is more than double the amount spent by the second biggest spender: Manchester United (€272 million for 7 players).

West Ham United, Nottingham Forest and Wolverhampton Wanderers complete an all-English top five. All twenty Premier League teams but Leicester City (51st), feature in the top 50, reflecting the increasingly obvious economic dominance of the English top flight. Barcelona is ahead of Paris St-Germain among non-Premier League teams, AFC Ajax tops the table for clubs outside of the big-5, while Flamengo is the only non-European team in the top 50.

Per league, the English top division is far above any other championship with a staggering €3.19 billion total fee expenditure (add-ons included). This is almost four times more than the amount invested by the teams in the second biggest spending league: the Italian Serie A (€826 m). The French Ligue 1 (€726 m) completes the podium ahead of the Spanish Liga (€708 m) and the German Bundesliga (€689 m). The sixth ranked competition, the Dutch Eredivisie, is at a much lower level (€228 m).

>>> Top 50

The 405th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 417 teams from 27 European top divisions according to the percentage of minutes played by club-trained footballers, i.e. present for at least three years between the seasons of their 15th and 21st birthdays. The highest proportions were measured for the Slovakians of MŠK Žilina in total (73.3% of minutes by 16 players trained) and Athletic Club in the big-5 (56.6%; 13).

Club-trained footballers played a majority of minutes for only one other team in the five major leagues: Olympique Lyonnais (52.2%; 11 "trained"). Real Sociedad rounds out the podium for the big-5 (40.2%). Chelsea and Brighton & Hove top the list in the English Premier League (26.9%), SC Freiburg in the German Bundesliga (31.0%), AS Roma in Italian Serie A (17.8%), as well as SL Benfica in the Portuguese Primeira Liga (25.8%).

Thirty-three teams are at the bottom of the ranking with no player trained fielded in current season’s domestic league matches. Among them are 11 big-5 league clubs: one from Ligue 1 (Olympique de Marseille), one from the Premier League (Brentford FC), one from the Bundesliga (Union Berlin), three from the Liga (Cádiz, Getafe and Almería), and five from Serie A (Bologna, Lecce, Udinese, Cremonese and Salernitana). The data by league is available in the Demographic Atlas.

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