Premier League starters who are not English: about 7 in 10 places

In the Premier League, England's top division, how many foreign players start a match? The count is of starting places, the 11 players each side begins with (the rest are substitutes). A player who started 30 matches is counted 30 times, so regular starters carry more weight. Foreign means a nationality other than English in the records of the company that supplies the site's match data, one per player.

A European season runs from one year into the next. On this count, 68.5% of the Premier League's starting places in 2016/17 went to non-English players, or 60.8% if Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are not counted as foreign. In 2022/23 the figures were 69.3% and 64.5%. The 2026/27 season has only just begun: 70 matches up to 19 October. In them the figures are 72.3% and 68.6%.

Between clubs the gap is wide. At one club, Liverpool, non-English players fill 98.7% of the starting places; at another, Everton, 29.9%. If Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are not counted as foreign, the figures are 97.4% and 24.7%. Both have played seven matches, up to 19 October. The article then compares the Premier League with the Brasileirão, the name Brazilians give their national league.

The Brasileirão series: flat from 2017 to 2021, rising since 2022

In 2016, foreigners took 7.8% of the starting places. From 2017 to 2021, the share stayed almost flat, between 8.7% and 10.6%. In 2022 it rose to 13.5%. In 2023 it rose to 19.4%. The figures come from the Soccer Addicted archive, the site's database of matches, which has the lineups (the list of starters for every match) of the Brasileirão from 2015 to 2024 and for 2026.

The table shows the plateau up to 2021 and the rise afterwards. For 2024 the table shows about 23%, and at least 19.6%. The range comes from 14.5% of the places having no nationality on record, which may hide foreigners. The archive does not have the lineups for 2025. In 2015, 2.6% of the places also have no nationality, and the 5.6% figure holds for the others.

How many foreigners each team fields, and where they come from

The rise shows up too when each team is looked at in each match, with the eleven starters on record. In 2015, the team started with no foreigner 60.0% of the time. In 2026, up to 19 October, it is only 5.6%; by coincidence, the same figure as the foreigners' share in 2015. In 21.8% of cases it started with 5 or more. The maximum was 8 foreigners among the eleven, for Athletico PR on 25 February 2026. In 2015, the maximum was 4.

Eleven clubs are above the league average, which is 28.6% up to 19 October. Athletico PR has foreigners in 47.5% of its starting places, and Mirassol in 2.6%. Athletico PR's rate is about 18 times Mirassol's. Palmeiras and Internacional differ by 1 foreign starting place. The next table shows the foreigners' nationality, not their country of birth.

In each year, the five countries with the most foreigners add up to almost the same share, 82.4% in 2015 and 81.6% in 2026, but who is among them changes. Argentina stays in front, and Colombia doubles its share. The 2026 data run up to 19 October. One of the Uruguayans, Nicolás Acevedo, of Bahia, started 28 of the team's 31 matches in 2026.

The Brazilian cap on foreigners applies to the matchday squad, not to who is on the pitch

The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) limits the foreign players each club can name in the matchday squad, the list of those who may play (11 starters and up to 12 substitutes), not those on the pitch. For the cap, a refugee counts as Brazilian. According to the CBF, the cap was 3 in 2013 and 5 from 2014 to 2022. Then 7 in 2023 and 9 in 2024.

The CBF says the rise of foreigners on the pitch, measured by it in minutes, coincides with the gradual raising of the cap. On this article's count, the rise and the cap went together in 2023 and 2024. But the jump of 2022 came before, with the cap at 5. The count does not prove that one caused the other. The CBF's measure cannot be compared with this count.

The clubs and federations approved the plan with only two votes against, according to the CBF. It lowers the cap to 8 in 2027 and to 7 in 2028. Then come 6 in 2029 and 5 in 2030. The plan is not in force yet: in 2026 the cap is 9. Under the plan, the cap of 5 in 2030 will cover the whole matchday squad, starters and substitutes.

The Brasileirão next to the five European leagues

In the five European leagues, the share of foreigners is higher than in the Brasileirão, up to 19 October 2026. It runs from 40.1% in LaLiga to 72.5% in Serie A. The same yardstick applies to the Premier League (England), LaLiga (Spain), Serie A, the Bundesliga (Germany) and Ligue 1 (France). In Europe, a season runs from one year into the next, like 2022/23.

Up to 19 October, European clubs had played between six and nine times. Brazil's clubs, 30 or 31. The Premier League has two counts: in one, only English players are not foreign; in the other, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are not foreign either. On the first count the Premier League stands at 72.3% and Serie A at 72.5%, a gap too small to say which has more.

The Brasileirão has the smallest share, 28.6%, and its last season without gaps is 2023. Between the last full season and 2026/27 there is a hole: the archive has the lineups for 2023/24 only up to December 2023 and does not have those for 2024/25 and 2025/26 in the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A and the Bundesliga. In Ligue 1, only 2025/26 is missing.

Up to 19 October, Málaga played 9 times and did not start a single foreigner. Venezia, in 7 matches, started only foreigners. No league average shows this distance between clubs. With 6 to 9 matches per club, the order in Europe can still change.

What each European league limits

In the Premier League, in 2026/27, there is no cap on foreign players. In 2025/26, a club's list of 25 players could include at most 17 who were not Home Grown, that is, not trained in the country, of any nationality, and in 2026/27 a player who is not a UK or Irish citizen usually needs the Football Association's approval. In LaLiga, in 2025/26 and 2026/27, the first team can register up to 3 players from outside the European Union.

In Serie A, in 2026/27, the cap is 2 or 3 new registrations of players from outside the EU arriving from abroad. In the Bundesliga, in 2026, there is no cap, but a minimum of 12 German players in the squad. In Ligue 1, in 2024/25, the cap was 4 players from outside the EU (excluding countries with agreements) in the matchday squad. None of these rules is this page's yardstick, which counts every starter with another nationality in the records.

The limits of the data: one nationality per player

The records of the company that supplies the site's match data hold a single nationality per player and use it in every match, old ones included. A player who gained another citizenship in 2026 counts, in matches from 2021, by the nationality he has today. Of the 20 players checked on official pages, 16 match the records. Three have two nationalities and one differs.

In 2015, foreigners took 5.6% of the Brasileirão's starting places. In 2026, up to 19 October, they take 28.6%. In my reading, the easiest contrast to remember is in the lineups: in 2015, none had 5 or more foreigners; in 2026, more than one in every five does.