Nigeria’s statistics in the export of football talents across the world are rating behind two midstream yet highly ambitious European countries – Serbia and Croatia – as well as one from South America – Colombia – in the echelon of countries that have produced the larger number of players plying their soccer trade outside their nations of origin, megasportsarena.com gathered.
While world renowned football playing nations – Brazil, France, Argentina, England, Spain and Germany – are also noted in the log of countries with their best players forming the foreign legion in the best playing fields across Europe, Nigeria’s ratio of 73.2 is also bettered by Serbia, Colombia and Croatia, with the West African nation placed 10th on the log.
This is according to the latest CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post, which ranks Nigeria 10th in the comity of football crazy nations that are acclaimed for exporting crack footballers to other countries, with 73.2 percent of the country’s current talents now abroad in top division clubs.
The survey equaled noted that some of Nigeria’s biggest stars of the moment feature in Europe’s top-five leagues – being Odion Jude Ighalo, Alex Iwobi, Wilfred Onyinyen Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho (in England), Jamilu Collins and Kingsley Ehizibue (Germany), Moses Simon, Samuel Kalu and Victor Osimhen (France), Oghenekaro Etebo, Kenneth Omeruo, Chidozie Awaziem and Samuel Chukwueze (Spain) as well as William Troost-Ekong and Ola Aina (Italy).
While Brazil are the world’s foremost football talents’ exporting nation, France lead in Europe, Japan top in Asia and Nigeria rate best in Africa, with 399 professional footballers abroad at present, but Norway is surprisingly cited as the main destination of the country’s foreign-based players – followed by Sweden, Turkey, Bangladesh and Portugal.
This is in contrast with initial data that cited Belgium as the country that had the largest influx of Nigerian players in the early days, led by Stephen Keshi, Sunday Oliseh, Daniel Amokachi, Peter Rufai, Samson Siasia, Celestine Babayaro and Victor Ikpeba, while the English Premier League has of recent become a fertile hunting ground for the country’s top players.
