Diversity in the Premier League

Diversity in the Premier League

Deadline day. The final day when football clubs can manipulate and finalise their squads for the upcoming season. This day always produces controversies – the amount of money being paid, where players are going to, the form players have been in etc. etc.

From a broader perspective, one of the bigger controversies in the football world is the view that there should be more English players in the English Premier League. We like to talk quantitatively – after all mathematics, probability and odds is the nature of our business! So, this deadline day, we have produced an infographic which details the diversity of last season’s Premier League football teams.

What we found was truly astonishing. As you can see, Burnley, Leicester and QPR come in the top 3 whereas Stoke, Arsenal and Chelsea come in the bottom 3 for the % of English players in their teams. Whilst some may accuse the latter 3 of being anti-English players, don’t forget that diversity need not be a bad thing. After all it may be the inclusion of these globally diverse players that inspires innovation in the team and pushes them to greater heights.

We hope that this infographic inspires debate, given that it is a wide-ranging and, some feel, important issue. We will wait to see what the changes are at the end of this season.

Hopefully this graphic will motivate the next generation of footballers who may feel they want to change this statistic, and encourage them to bring what they have to offer to the forefront of the global stage of the great game that is football.