Suggestion/Bug: To many foreigners in the big leagues.

After looking through the FM 2062Holidaysave in this thread i saw that the game still has a problem with the number of foreigners in the different teams. As a test i looked at the squads of the 6 biggest teams in the two leagues that is playable in the save (Spain and England). I have used Wikipedia as a source, so if anything is wrong, sue them. I have taken everyone from Great Britain and Ireland into account on the English teams.

Spain

Barcelona - 20 players 11 Spanish =55%

Real Madrid - 25 players 10 Spanish = 40%

Valencia - 24 players 14 Spanish = 58%

Villarreal 24 players 17 Spanish = 70%

Atletico Madrid - 22 players 12 Spanish = 54%

Sevilla - 29 players 13 Spanish = 44%

Total = 144 players 77 Spanish = 53%

England

Chelsea - 24 players 6 British= 25%

Man Utd - 30 players* 13 British = 43%

Arsenal - 24 players 3 British = 12%

Tottenham - 27 players 12 British = 44%

Man City - 32 players 14 British = 43%

Liverpool - 22 players 6 British = 27%

*Wiki register a lot of player with no first team matches. I removed them from the statistic

Total = 159 players 54 British =34%

World Cup 2010 number of players in England, Italy, Spain and Germanys squad (Top 4 leagues) playing in a foreign country was 3 (Reina, Torres and Fabregas)

This is how it looks in FM 2011 in 2062, with the 6 biggest teams in the leagues at the time.

Spain

Barcelona - 24 players 6 Spanish = 25%

Valencia - 26 players 2 Spanish = 7%

Sevilla - 30 players 8 Spanish = 26%

Real Madrid - 25 players 6 Spanish = 24%

Deportivo - 22 players 6 Spanish = 27%

Atletico Madrid 27 players 10 Spanish = 37%

Total = 154 players 38 Spanish = 25%

Big increase in number of players, but a big decrease in number of Spanish players. And since the squads is bigger i would guess a lot of the Spanish players is really B-team players moved up (The AI has a tendency to do that). The domestic player bias in the factscreen is much higher, but that is probably taking into account a lot of U19players.

England

Man City - 21 players 11 British = 52%

Birmingham - 25 players 4 British = 16%

Man Utd - 26 players 9 British = 34%

Arsenal - 27 players 12 British = 44%

Chelsea 26 players 14 British = 53%

Newcastle 23 players 10 British = 43%

Total 148 players 60 British = 40%

Suprisingly, in England the stats look much better, and has actually decreased the number of foreigners since the start. Realistic i guess, since many clubs has started to invest in cheaper English players because of the Economical situation. And with the Economical Fair Play rule i would guess it is gonna be more then a trend. So why is this not taken into account in Spain? They got the same squad registration-rules they got in England, so that is no excuse.

World Cup 2062 number of players in number of players in England, Italy, Spain and France squad (Top 4 leagues) playing in a foreign country was 48 (Italy 12, France 12, England 6, Spain 18)

This is the really big problem. For a player like Llorente or Young, going to a bigger club in their own country is much more likely then going to one of the bigger clubs abroad. The few exeptions exist, but they are exactly that, exeptions. And for a player like Fabregas and Torres, the rumours of going home to their own country will always exist, because it is logical and normal (like Pique did).

I did a few other teams to, but it is not that good statistic, because the league is not playable (i might make my own, bigger holiday-save to check).

Real Life

Internazionale - 27 players 4 Italian = 15%

AC Milan - 28 players 13 Italian = 46%

Roma - 28 players 11 Italian = 39%

Juventus - 26 players 17 Italian = 65%

FC Bayern - 28 players 14 German = 50%

Schalke 04 - 30 players 10 German = 33%

Werder Bremen - 29 players 15 German 52%

Marseille - 26 players 10 French = 38%

Lyon - 26 players 15 French = 57%

2062

Internazionale 27 players 5 Italian = 19%

AC Milan 27 players 6 Italian = 22%

Roma 26 players 7 Italian = 26%

Juventus 27 players 5 Italian = 19%

FC Bayern 24 players 5 German = 21%

Schalke 22 players 5 German = 22%

Werder Bremen 15 players 3 German = 33%

Marseille 27 players 8 French = 30%

Lyon - 27 players 12 French = 44

So every team is drasticly below where they started, exept Inter (who really should have a lot of foreigner, they are Internazionale after all).

So my solution. Make the clubs more eager to get players from their own country. Make players who has a choice between to equal leagues, and two equal teams to more often choose the team from his own country. Get players that is playing in foreign teams to seek home more active. A lot of the players that go from a really big league to another end up going home. I could mention Owen, McManaman, Metzelder, Pique, Diamanti, Arbeloa, Aquilani, Cannavaro, Zambrotta and the list goes on. There is no way Italys biggest star would play in Porto for 5 years.

Sorry for my English, and sorry for a pretty messy thread. I guess it should be readable and understandable anyway.

Theres never enough good English, Spanish or Italian players to go round.

I think every manager at a big club is forced to mostly bolster with young brazillians because the other people are good enough

Well, that could maybe be the case, but Spain is 4., England 5., and Italy 9. in the FIFA-ranking, so there should be enough quality players. Brazil is 6. by the way.

In Spains top 6. best players, to is playing in Milan, and both of them went through a lot of random european semigood clubs before ending up there. Surely some Spanish club should be looking at them at some point?

One Spanish national team player in Bordeaux is on his way out. Inter, Milan and Man Utd is interested, but no Spanish teams.

I accept the occational player going abroad, but it should be the exeption, not the rule.

Have you checked dual nationalities?

Cant say that i have. Not to sure that it would make a really big difference.

It should be the exception in the early years, but things change over time. Whilst it would be strange for a drastic change to happen, small changes like the odd international playing abroad shouldn't necessarily be called "bugs". A 30% drop in the numbers of Spanish players is very strange, but could there be a reason behind it, like Spanish teams not paying the same wages anymore, or the league's reputation declining?

I agree. It could be a natural change, but the same thing has happened every time i have holidayed in FM09, FM10 and now also here. And it is about the same, if you stop in 2030 or 2060. If it was a natural thing it should surely fluctuate? The only difference i have seen here as exeptions to FM10, is that English teams has started to focus more on English players. Thats great, but should also be happening in Italy and Spain?

The Spanish league is the number 1 league in Europe at the time, and Barca is paying over 100k to 6 players, Real Madrid to 3, Valencia 11, Deportivo 3, Sevilla 6. That is way more than it is in England at the time.

If it is wanted/needed i could make a holiday-save with all the big leagues.

Could we all imagine how foreigners there would be now 10 years ago in the big leagues?

Could we have imagined when a club, namely Arsenal, would field an entire foreign starting XI in the EPL 10 years ago?

Things change you know.

I know that, and accept it. But that doesn't explain why the numbers always end up the same way. I ran a little test with the biggest leagues in Europe+Norway as my home country, just to check how it progressed.

Nation - Domestic Player Bias - National Team Players abroad

2010

England - 60% - 0

France - 79% - 18

Germany - 70% - 2

Holland - 69% - 13

Italy - 73% - 0

Norway - 75% - 15

Portugal - 45% - 21

Spain - 67% - 5

2015

England - 47% - 3

(I managed to remove France - Holland while writing this, but the numbers was about the same as in 2020 for all three)

Italy - 46% - 11

Norway - 85% - 24

Portugal - 62% - 16

Spain - 54% - 10

2020

England - 40% - 4

France - 56% - 20

Germany - 73% - 13

Holland - 47% - 20

Italy - 49% - 15

Norway - 86% - 26

Portugal - 60% - 16

Spain - 46% - 12

2022

England - 41% - 2

France - 51% - 25

Germany - 72% - 15

Holland - 48% - 14 (Holland has for some reason a lot of grey players)

Italy - 43% - 14

Norway - 89% - 26

Portugal - 57% - 19

Spain - 42% - 15

So what do this number say?

- England: Big steady decrease in domestic players. Looks to stabilize now at about 40%. Has mostly Premiershipplayers on the national team.

- France: Huge decrease the first 5 years. Stabilized after that. Increase in foreign players in the national team, but not a really unrealistic one.

- Germany: Almost no change in domestic players, but more and more of the national team is based abroad. That could be expected if the German League was falling behind, but it is still the 4. biggest, and Bayern Munich is the holders of the Champions League.

- Holland: Big decrease first five years, almost no change after that. Most of the big stars from Netherlands is playing abroad, like they are in real life.

- Italy: Big decrease first five years. Stabilized afterwards. The national team has gone from having no players abroad (and few others than Rossi and Balotelli close) to having most of their players in other country.

- Norway: Increased number of domestic players, but now the entire national team is based abroad.

- Portugal: Probably the most stable league of all, in both domestic player bias and in the national teams.

- Spain: Decreasing slowly. The reason seems to be that most of the Spanish stars IRL (Xavi, Iniesta, and now Bojan, De Gea, Canales) seem to stay in Spain, while a lot of the younger players is going abroad.

So to summarize. The change is happening in the first five years, and then stabilizing itself. So it has nothing to to with a changing world. If it was really fluctuating i would think its was a cool feature, but this is just the world in the game being different from the real world. And do you really think that in the next five years, with all the new rules for home grown players and the economical situation most clubs live in, that the number of foreigners in the big leagues will increase? The number of foreigners has gone down in at least both England and Italy the last few years.

Most of the clubs in the world should have a higher interest in getting domestic players to their teams. It isn't for no reason Milner, Hargreaves, Bentley to name a few has gone for ridic prices. Because most teams want to have domestic players, and will gladly pay some more money to get them. Most rumours even say that Konchesky was signed for Liverpool only because they needed more English players.

It looks worrying to me - especially the Spanish situation. As we know the polices that Barca have for example. I mean a lot of those clubs would have to leave multiple spaces for the CL. SCIAG talks about wages and league reputation - which is fair enough but I am sure that I am not sticking my neck on the line by saying Barca will be one of the top clubs in the world. I am sure M can tell us. List of world's richest clubs, Coefficient point please?

But to be honest this is just an illustration of how bad the AI managers are in the future and the players that they buy or dont buy and the way they go about managing their team in all aspects. So its no real surprise in truth.

Dual nationalities do count.

I had an Italian regen who I bought from Barcelona early on. He went on to captain Italy and was probably their best player for a long time.

When I came to sell him he went back to Spain - no Italian clubs were interested. Strange I thought, then I saw that this guy was born in Argentina. He had Italian 2nd nationality but clearly preferred to play in Spain where they speak his main language.

Why Italian clubs weren't in for him at all is strange though.

Could we all imagine how foreigners there would be now 10 years ago in the big leagues?

Could we have imagined when a club, namely Arsenal, would field an entire foreign starting XI in the EPL 10 years ago?

Things change you know.

Yep, have to agree with this point.

As you have gone as far as 2060, thats 50 years in game time. Go back 50 years in real life and there would hardly have been any foreigners in any league!

It's something that people who complain about things 50 years in the future in the game but then compare it to current state of the game. (Im not bashing the OPs original point mind!)

Yes, the world has changed in the last 50 years, and the world will change in the next 50 years. But there is a reason why the world has changed. More clubs got professional and could offer more wages to attract players. The bosman ruling got in place and made the clubs able to offer more wages and made it cheaper to gamble on a foreigner. But most important, a lot of rules has been removed from the football world. 15+ years ago a club could only use 3 foreigners in Europe. Both Italy and England had very strict rules for foreign players. These rules has to some degree started to come back, and the clubs has less money. In the game there is no new rules to explain the big increase in foreigners, and except the player pool and quality of each team, the world in 2060 is just the same as in 2010. (Normal prices for players dont fluctuate, wages is aboiut the same, tv-money and money from spectators is not to different) And besides, the big change is already in place in 2015, so it is not something that is happening in the far away future.