7.1 Introduction
There are frequent reports regarding the number of players who perform in the EPL, this is often associated with the number of non-UK players bought by clubs to add to their squads (BBC, 2013). However there is little research on player transfer in professional sport except articles published in the media, nonetheless, it is evident that there is an ever increasing number of non-UK players purchased and playing for English clubs in the EPL (BBC, 2013; Transfermarkt, 2014). Although increasing migration occurred before the mid-1990s, players coming to play in the top league in England were typically from commonwealth countries due to social and historical factors (McGovern, 2002; Taylor, 2006). However by the mid 1990’s many changes had occurred in social and political world simultaneously, thus expanding the potential player markets, in particular across Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union countries but also across the world (Taylor, 2006).
The effect of the social and political changes were further enhanced by the introduction of the Bosman ruling in 1995, which enabled clubs to employ greater number of non-native players (Baur & Lehmann, 2007; BBC, 2013; Binder & Findlay, 2012; McGovern, 2002; Taylor, 2006; Transfermarkt, 2014). The Bosman ruling allowed the free transfer of out of contract players within the European Union, thus opening up the pool of available players for English clubs. In addition, the ruling prohibited the introduction of foreign player quotas and therefore allowed clubs to recruit as many non-UK players as they desired (Binder & Findlay, 2012). Since the introduction of the Bosman ruling National Governing Bodies and Continental Confederations within Europe have attempted to impose restrictions on the number of
“home-grown” players within either a team’s starting line-up or the teams squad. However, these restrictions are constantly under scrutiny due to the legality of such restrictions (the European Union permits unimpeded employment migration between EU member states, and therefore prevents member countries restricting migration), as well as a reluctance by clubs in the EPL to agree on the introduction of player quotas (Gardiner & Welch, 2011; Soika, 2008). As a consequence of social and political changes, as well as the introduction of the Bosman ruling, the EPL saw an increase in the minutes played by non-UK players from 28.9% in 1994-95 to 67% in 2013-14 (BBC, 2013; Binder & Findlay, 2012).
The majority of research has focused on the social and historical effects and influences upon migration, both overall and sport specific, as well as the personal and professional consequences of migration (Free, 2007;
Littlewood et al., 2011; Maguire & Pearton, 2000; McGovern, 2002; Taylor, 2006). There is little research focused on the impact of player migration on overall performance, let alone the physical or technical performance during match play on a country or continent basis. The limited research that has been conducted has analysed the number of imports and exports on national club performance (Baur & Lehmann, 2007; Binder & Findlay, 2012). The research has suggested there may be some small negative effects on national and domestic leagues, although these negatives effects generally impact lower ranked teams and do not impact greatly on the big European Leagues (England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy), (Binder & Findlay, 2012).
Nevertheless, national teams who have a greater number of players performing in leagues abroad tend to perform better than teams with fewer
exported players (Baur & Lehmann, 2007). In addition, it has been suggested that greater player imports has increased the playing standards within the imported league, with player imports occurring across all teams, not just the top teams, therefore maintaining the league’s competitiveness (Baur &
Lehmann, 2007; Binder & Findlay, 2012). Research has suggested that increases in playing standards occur, increasing the number of imports generally implies clubs are employing better players and therefore expect an increase in the technical and physical performance. However, these player recruitment patterns could lead to over-saturation of good non-native players performing in the top leagues and reducing the number of experienced native players available for the national side (Baur & Lehmann, 2007). There has been a general acceptance, both in the coaching and wider world that non-UK players have greater technical skills than their non-UK counterparts and therefore increase the playing standards. Despite this general perception, there is no evidence that physical, technical or tactical workloads of players have evolved or that the degree of increase in non-UK players has increased the rate of any changes in performance, therefore the aim of this study was to analyse UK and non-UK performances in order to find evidence that supports or disproves the general perceptions highlighted above. Further analysis was designed to analyse player performances between continents, which could provide information for possible future recruitment patterns.
7.2 Methods
7.2.1 Match Analysis and Player Data
In the current study, the national team an individual player was eligible to play for was dictated by the nationality of that individual. Players with an English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish nationality were considered UK players, with all other nationalities considered non-UK (Maguire & Pearton, 2000). Due to historical political and social issues the Republic of Ireland was considered as a non-UK country (Free, 2007; McGovern, 2002). An extension to the protocol saw the data split in order to identify technical performance according to continental location according to player nationality;
data were divided according to the official FIFA classifications regarding the location of the countries national governing bodies (Table 7.1; FIFA, 2014).
These classifications caused some issues, Australia moved from the Oceanic Football Confederation to the Asian Football Confederation during the 2006-07 season and may have been adapting to tactical changes due to the change of opponents. Due to these changes, as well as the low number of observations for Oceanic players, the Asian and Oceanic confederations were combined into one category for all seasons examined.
7.2.2 Statistical Analysis
Independent t-test measures were used to compare UK and non-UK performance. Two-way independent-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were used to compare seasonal performance for UK and non-UK players for each of the five outfield positions (5 independent tests),
variables were set as player nationality and season, whilst dependent variables were set as physical and technical performance parameters.
Further two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were carries out to analyse the effect of continent on player performance across the seven seasons analysed. Independent variables were set as season and continent while dependent variables were set as physical and technical performance parameters. Independent ANOVA tests were conducted for each of the five outfield positions. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. The effect size (ES) was calculated to determine the meaningfulness of the difference and magnitudes classified as trivial (<0.2), small (>0.2-0.6), moderate (>0.6-1.2) and large (>1.2-2.0), (Batterham & Hopkins, 2006). Additionally, regression analyses were performed to quantify the relationship between selected variables across time and the uncertainty of the estimates using 95%
confidence intervals. All analyses were conducted using statistical software (R Development Core Team) and data visualisation was carried out using the
“ggplot2” package accessed via the Deducer Interface for the R statistical programming language.
Table 7.1: The breakdown in the number of observations according to playing position, player nationality and continent following resampling.
CB FB CM WM Attackers Total
European 3016 2854 2617 1712 1489 11 688
North-American 125 174 89 112 146 646
South
American 107 122 160 136 167 692
African 439 193 272 120 303 1327
Asian 105 77 62 56 47 347
UK 1792 1649 1622 990 827 6880
Non-UK 2000 1771 1578 1146 1325 7820
Total 3792 3420 3200 2136 2152 14 700
7.2.3 Hypothesis
H0 – There will be no differences in physical or technical performance measures between UK and non-UK players in the EPL.
H0 – There will be no difference in the rate of change or evolution over the data set between UK and non-UK players.
H0 – There will be no differences in performance between players from different continents.
7.3 Results
Overall there were a greater number of observations for non-UK players across all positions except central midfielders (Table 7.1). The number of observations for attackers across the seven seasons was continuously lower for UK compared to non-UK players with non-UK players recording 500 fewer observations in total (33-42% vs. 55-67%). UK centre backs recorded
≈200 fewer observations compared to non-UK centre backs in total (Table 7.2), the data set recorded non-UK centre backs having more observations in every season except 2009-10 (43%) and 2011-12 (45%). Overall non-UK full backs recorded ≈120 more observations, this resulted in a greater number of observations during each season except 2006-07 (51% vs. 49%) and 2012-13 (50%). Wide midfielders showed similar trends to full backs with non-UK