Five European football trends, from record attendances to record transfer spending
Monday, September 15, 2025
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Our UEFA European Club Talent and Competition Landscape reports provide 360-degree analyses of the continent’s football competitions and the talent within them.
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Our benchmarking reports on European football offer in-depth insights into the players, coaches, clubs, leagues and cups that make up the European football landscape. We've picked out some of the key takeaways from the most recent report, released this month.
Unprecedented attendance levels
A staggering 240 million people attended European club and national team football matches in the 2024/25 season, including more than 80 million spectators at matches beyond the top tier – both all-time records that demonstrate that the appetite for live football is stronger than ever.
Record transfer spending – especially on young players
This summer’s transfer window involved record investment, reflecting confidence in the European club football market on the back of record club revenues. European clubs spent a total of €9.1bn, of which more than half was invested in players aged 23 or under. Clubs in England once again spent the most on incoming players.
Dive deeper
Which 16 clubs welcomed more than a million home fans last season? Coaches from which countries are the most in demand? How many clubs broke their transfer records this summer? Discover the answers to all these questions and more in the full European Club Talent and Competition Landscape report.
Mobility in the football league pyramid
Promotion and relegation continue to deliver excitement and aspirations of reward. In total, 1,240 clubs have played in the top tier of their domestic leagues over the past decade, despite there currently being only 732 top-tier places across Europe’s domestic league structures.
Player workload is increasingly shared
Clubs are increasingly adapting to workload pressures by spreading match time across more players, using their full substitution allocations and rotating their squads. Almost 21,000 players were fielded across Europe’s 54 domestic top-tier leagues in 2024/25 – an 8% increase since the introduction of five substitutions. On average, each club fielded 30.5 players during their most recent league season.
Head coach stability rises
After several years of rising head coach turnover, the average number of head coach changes per top-division club in a season has fallen below one – the lowest in a decade. The average duration of a head coach’s time in their role remains low, however, and 60% of European clubs changed their head coach at least once last season.