By Mike Rowbottom
January 21 – Manchester United, managed by Sir Alex Ferguson (pictured) for 25 years, has the most stable squad in Europe, according to a new survey of the 36-member national associations of UEFA.
Based on a census of 13,108 footballers currently playing for 534 top division clubs, the report – entitled the Third Demographic Study of Footballers in Europe – shows that on average players remain at Old Trafford for 5.71 seasons.
Meanwhile Tottenham Hotspur have the greatest number of active international players – 22.
Figures compiled by the Professional Football Players’ Observatory (PFPO) also show that the Premier League has the highest percentage of international players in Europe – 61 per cent.
And England is second only to Cyprus in terms of how many foreigners play in it, with a figure of 58.4 per cent compared to 72.3 per cent.
Cyprus and England are among five nations where the premier leagues have a majority of foreigners among their first team players – the others being Portugal, Greece and Belgium.
Overall, the report concludes that players within Europe are not only more mobile in terms of employment, but also increasingly tall and old.
Barcelona is the European club with the shortest players – on average, 5ft eight-and-three-quarter inches – while the tallest belong to Austria’s SV Mattersburg and the Ukrainian team FC Volyn Lutsk – on average, 6ft one-and-a-half inches.
The oldest squad is that of Inter Milan with an average age of 29 years and seven months.
The 80-page report also shows that footballers in Europe are increasingly trained in a different club from the one they play for.
Though the percentage of players having migrated internationally during their career is 45.7 per cent, that of footballers playing in the club by which they have been trained is only 23.4 per cent.
The PFPO is a research group that generates comparable statistical indicators in the areas of demography, training, international recruitment, mobility and pitch performance of professional football players.
Created in 2005, the PFPO brings together researchers from the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES), the ThéMA research centre of the University of Franche-Comté, and the Institute of Sports Science of the University of Lausanne.
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