2024/25 season 

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More people watch the English Premier League than any national competition with viewers tuning in from all around the world. The English top-flight attracts the best players due to the prestige of the league and the finances on offer. 

Using Transfermarkt data, we recently analysed which Premier League clubs had the most nationalities in their squad with Brighton ranking first with 21. There’s 579 players in the Premier League with 196 hailing from England and 383 from abroad. But which nations have the most players in the league? Let’s find out. 

The nations with the most Premier League players

Besides England, there’s more Brazilians in the Premier League than any other nation, making up 8.1% of the players in the division. There’s six Brazilians valued at €50 million or higher, including three Arsenal stars, with Newcastle captain Bruno Guimarães the most valuable at €85m. As the graphic below illustrates, Portugal ranks third with 27 players in the Premier League. 

 The top three most valuable Portuguese players in England play for Manchester clubs with Rúben Dias and Bernardo Silva at Manchester City and Bruno Fernandes captain at Manchester United. France and Netherlands complete the top five most represented nations with Matthijs de Ligt the most valuable Dutch player after moving to Old Trafford this summer. Ireland (19) and Scotland (16) feature in the top ten with Wales (12) narrowly missing out but there’s only 4 Northern Irish players in the Premier League with Liverpool’s Conor Bradley the most valuable.