The eighth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report analyses the origin of foreign players in 6,135 professional and semi-professional clubs, within 458 leagues located in 183 countries worldwide. In total, 18,660 foreign players from 194 origins were recorded. The study notably shows that Brazil is the most represented among foreign nationals, followed by Argentina and France.

Since 2005, the CIES Football Observatory has developed pioneering data analysis to understand the logics of success in football. This Monthly Report unveils the key findings related to the four main dimensions of sustainable squad management: team chemistry, demographic structure, performance analysis and transfer policy.

The CIES Football Observatory has built powerful econometric models to estimate both transfer values and transfer probabilities of professional football players. This Monthly Report describes the exclusive approach developed and lists the big-5 league footballers with the highest transfer values and fee-paying transfer probabilities at the end of the 2014/15 season.

Since 2010, the CIES Football Observatory has been developing an innovative approach to the technical analysis of performance in football both at team and player levels. This paper details the methodology used, which is exemplified through the presentation of the best clubs and players for the 2014/15 big-5 league season.

The fourth edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report presents an in-depth analysis of the squad composition of teams qualified for the 2014/15 Champions League quarter-finals. Using values measured for the last five winners, the study identified Real Madrid as the favourites. In the end, the trophy was lifted by their historical rivals Barcelona.

This Monthly Report analyses the evolution of transfer sums paid by clubs in the five major European leagues from the 2009/10 season up until 2014/15. It shows that ever-increasing amounts of money are at stake in the transfer market of football players. In parallel, a process of concentration of expenditure at the top of the pyramid is taking place. This reinforces the domination of the wealthiest clubs. A reform is proposed to improve the redistributive factor of the transfer system.