At the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany, representatives from 40 leagues will participate, including a significant number of non-European championships such as: Saudi Pro League (14 players), MLS (7 players), UAE (2 players), South Korea (2 players), Qatar (1 player), and Iran (1 player).
The inclusion of the Georgian national team significantly expanded the geography of EURO 2024. Georgian national team players are the sole representatives of the leagues of Iran (Giorgi Gvelesiani), Azerbaijan (Luka Gugeshashvili), Spanish Segunda (Giorgi Kochorashvili), as well as the Georgian league itself (Giorgi Tsitaishvili and Giorgi Loria).
The image presents information about players from various football leagues participating in EURO 2024. The data shows which national and international leagues are most represented at this prestigious tournament.
*The data may change as players can switch clubs.
Most Represented Leagues
- Premier League (England) - 96 players
- Serie A (Italy) - 91 players
- Bundesliga (Germany) - 77 players
- La Liga (Spain) - 57 players
- Ligue 1 (France) - 28 players
This data highlights the dominant role of the leading European leagues in international football. Many of the world’s best players play in these leagues, which is reflected in their numerous presences at EURO 2024.
Other Notable Leagues
- Süper Lig (Turkey) - 25 players
- Czech First League (Czech Republic) - 23 players
- Eredivisie (Netherlands) - 15 players
- Ukrainian Premier League (Ukraine) - 15 players
- EFL Championship (England) - 14 players
- Saudi Pro League (Saudi Arabia) - 14 players
Interestingly, among the leagues that are not part of the top-5 European championships, the Turkish Süper Lig and the Czech First League have high representation. From the Czech League, 16 players of the Czech national team, as well as 4 Slovaks, 1 Serb, and 1 Albanian, will participate in the EURO. The Turkish League is more diverse: besides players from the Turkish national team, there are also players from Poland, Croatia, Albania, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, and Belgium.
Second Leagues
Interestingly, the most represented second leagues in Europe are once again England and Italy, with 15 and 13 players respectively. These figures even surpass the representation from the top league of Portugal (11 players), and from the Spanish Segunda, there is only one player.
Influence of Time and Globalization
The presence of 14 players from Saudi Arabia underscores the recent trend of top Asian clubs becoming attractive to European footballers. Nowadays, football is becoming increasingly globalized, with strong leagues emerging not only in Europe but also in Asia. This EURO is notable for having 20 players from Asian clubs for the first time in the tournament's history. It is worth mentioning that in the last tournament, there were 4 representatives from Asian leagues, and in 2016 there were 5. This time, the Saudi league alone is sending 14 players to the EURO, twice as many as MLS, the second non-European league by the number of players in the tournament. Among the representatives of the Saudi Pro League are stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcelo Brozović, N'Golo Kanté, Sergej Milinković-Savić, and Yannick Carrasco.
Additionally, the Cypriot championship surprised this time, sending six players to EURO 2024 — two Georgians, a Hungarian, a Romanian, a Slovenian, and a Croatian.
It is also important to note that the national teams of Georgia and Slovenia have two players each representing their local leagues, while Albania is the only participant in the EURO whose league is not represented at the tournament at all.