By David Butler
With the Premier League beginning its 25th season tonight, its interesting to think about the evolution of the competition since 1992. Off the pitch, the economic growth of the industry, embodied by wage increases, transfer fee inflation, broadcast rights sales and the successful commercialisation of the ‘product’ stands out as the major development.
On the pitch, the internationalisation of the league is the most notable structural change for me. The influx of foreign talent has largely been a product of the Bosman ruling and the increasing wages on offer in the League. Notably, the increasing numbers of overseas players in the Premier League has been a controversial issue.
The charts below give an indication of the internationalisation of the Premier League over the last 25 years. The data for these charts has been gathered from multiple online sources and constitutes 15,162 individual observations.
The first chart displays the nationality of Premier League players in percentage terms by season based on whether they are English (white bars), from another EU country (light grey bars) or are non-EU (dark grey bars). In 1992, the majority of the talent in the league was from England. Only 35% of the players for the 17/18 season are English. This is the joint lowest percentage in the history of the competition and the share of English born player in the league has fallen over the past 25 years.
With the Premier League beginning its 25th season tonight, its interesting to think about the evolution of the competition since 1992. Off the pitch, the economic growth of the industry, embodied by wage increases, transfer fee inflation, broadcast rights sales and the successful commercialisation of the ‘product’ stands out as the major development.
On the pitch, the internationalisation of the league is the most notable structural change for me. The influx of foreign talent has largely been a product of the Bosman ruling and the increasing wages on offer in the League. Notably, the increasing numbers of overseas players in the Premier League has been a controversial issue.
The charts below give an indication of the internationalisation of the Premier League over the last 25 years. The data for these charts has been gathered from multiple online sources and constitutes 15,162 individual observations.
The first chart displays the nationality of Premier League players in percentage terms by season based on whether they are English (white bars), from another EU country (light grey bars) or are non-EU (dark grey bars). In 1992, the majority of the talent in the league was from England. Only 35% of the players for the 17/18 season are English. This is the joint lowest percentage in the history of the competition and the share of English born player in the league has fallen over the past 25 years.
As the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have had a strong connection to the Premier League over the years, the second chart shows the declining number of players from the British Isles and Republic of Ireland playing in the league over the years. In 92/93 there was 541 players from the British Isles and the Republic of Ireland. This season there are 244 players from the region. Along with some seasons in the mid 2000’s, the last two seasons stand-out as more players from outside of the British Isles and Republic of Ireland region were contracted to Premier League Clubs.
The third chart is a count of the number of nationalities in the league over the years. In 1992 there was 30 countries represented in the Premier League. There will be 65 represented this year. Armenia (Henrikh Mkhitaryan) were the newest arrival last season.
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