Youth development: Premier League tops the table for launching new professional players (ECA)

The Premier League is the league that debuted the most players between the 2018-19 and 2022-23 seasons, with 381 new professionals launched by its clubs, according to the "Transition from Academy to First Team Football" report published by the European Club Association in collaboration with business intelligence platform Football Benchmark on 24/07/2024.

In terms of clubs, Atalanta BC (Serie A Enilive) brought in the most new professional players (42) over the same period, ahead of FC Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukrainian Premier League) and FC Inter Milan (Serie A Enilive, 38 each).

"The key objectives of the study were to understand the first team transition process in Europe, provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis of its current state and identify best practices from clubs to clubs. The study found that the transition to the first team is possibly the most challenging step during a player's entire career, and following detailed analysis, it provides a number of recommendations that clubs of all sizes across ECA's membership can follow to help guide youngsters through this crucial…