We examine the analysis of the International Centre for Sports Studies

In their 59th Monthly Report, Swiss analysts dwelled on a painful, topical issue - how the COVID pandemic affected modern European football.

CIES reviewed the top 31 continental championships for the period starting from 2009, dividing it into two parts: 2009-2019 era and 2020 separately. Thus, you can clearly see how the football of the Old World in 2020 was different from itself as far back as in 2019.

First, let's outline a typical portrait of a modern football player, according to the International Centre for Sports Studies: he is 26 years old, his height is 182.2 cm, he has been playing for one club for 2.4 years, in half of the cases he migrates abroad.

Now let’s move to the regularities of "pandemic" football.

1. More young footballers. This year, 4% of theplayersin the European Leagues teams are under 19 years old. This is the highest rate ever recorded.
2. More debutants. 5.4% - again, the peak figure.
3. Fewerhomegrown players. 17.8% is the third indicator from the bottom (in Ukraine it is even lower - 14.9%).
4. Fewernew entrants. 40.7%compared 43.2% a year ago (in the Favbet League it is 39.8%).
5. The number offoreignersalmost did not decrease, remaining at a high level. 41.2%  compared to 41.9% the last year and 41.6% in 2018. Before that it was less than forty percent.

The CIES concludes: “These results show that the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities between clubs across Europe. Smaller teams had to lower their ambitions even more than the larger ones. For many clubs, the immediate future is a struggle to survive. In this extremely tense context, clubs that have established robust training sectors will stand the test better than others. This applies to both the sports and financial perspectives. "

https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr59/en/