The Premier League has supplied 163 players for the World Cup. And, staggeringly, Crystal Palace have sent more players to the tournament than Real Madrid.
Research by Football Benchmark shows English football’s top flight has provided 60 per cent more than the next league.
Incredibly, 39 of the 48 competing nations have a Premier League player in the squad while 20 of England’s squad play in the Premier League. That rises to 21 if you include Marcus Rashford.
That is more than other major European nations as Spain have 17 La Liga players, Germany 18 from the Bundesliga, France 8 from Ligue 1, and Portugal 6 from Liga Portugal.
The really staggering stat is that Real Madrid do not have a single player in the Spanish squad. Real Madrid do have ten players at the tournament but Crystal Palace have 12 at this summer’s World Cup, according to Football Benchmark.
Palace have Jean-Philippe Mateta & Maxence Lacroix (France); Dean Henderson (England); Chris Richards (USA); Daichi Kamada (Japan); Yéremy Pino (Spain); Chadi Riad (Morocco); Daniel Muñoz & Jefferson Lerma (Colombia); Ismaïla Sarr (Senegal); Evann Guessand (Ivory Coast) and Jørgen Strand Larsen (Norway).
The Premier League has also sent more Portuguese players to the Portugal squad than the Portuguese league. Manchester City has provided more players than any other club with a staggering 19 in total.
Premier League chiefs will see it as a vindication of the The Elite Player Performance Plan which was launched in 2012. Fourteen years on, academies are producing elite players coming through the system who are playing at this highest level in Europe and also starring for England.
Harry Kane is a superstar at Bayern Munich, Jude Bellingham is huge star at Real Madrid and Anthony Gordon has just joined Barcelona for £70m.
View 2 ImagesMaxence Lacroix and Jean-Philippe Mateta have secured spots in France’s squad for the World Cup(Image: Getty Images)
England’s national youth teams have been the most successful in Europe, winning six major tournaments across the UEFA U17, U19, U21 and FIFA U17, U20 competitions.
The Benchmark report states: “The Premier League’s increasing dominance is also reflected by a data point that was unthinkable a decade ago: Crystal Palace FC sent two more players to the tournament than Real Madrid CF (12 vs 10).”
Andrea Sartori, Founder & CEO of Football Benchmark, said: “The FIFA World Cup has always been football’s biggest stage but the data illustrates how much the tournament has evolved.
“FIFA World Cup 2026 will be the largest edition ever staged, reflecting both the growing scale of the competition and the increasing global reach of the game.
“From the growth in revenues and prize money to the concentration of talent within a relatively small number of clubs, leagues, and national teams, our guide to the tournament provides a unique snapshot of many of the financial, commercial and sporting trends shaping the game today.”
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The full report is here: Football Benchmark’s Guide to the FIFA World Cup 2026
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