The decline of Italian football

The Italians are in danger of becoming the first former World Cup winners to fail in qualifying for three consecutive tournaments: Russia, Qatar... and now possibly North America.

Italy has long been a strong national side, why have they failed so miserably in recent tournaments?

One of the reasons could be the Italian league clubs' reliance on foreign players coming into the teams, which then is reducing the possibility of young Italian players coming through to the first team and then on to the national side.

Look at the stats for foreign players making up the clubs' squads. Based on data from the 2025-26 Serie A season, roughly 68.5% to 68.7% of the players in the Italian top-flight league are non-Italian. This indicates a high reliance on foreign talent, with only about 31-33% of players being Italian nationals.

Our own Premier League is not far behind the Italians in recruitment for overseas signings. Approximately 60–70% of players in the Premier League are non-English, representing one of the highest proportions of foreign talent in European football.

Recent data shows over 66% of players are overseas nationals, while only about one-third are English. This high representation makes the Premier League highly globalized compared to others.

English clubs were put under a rule limiting the number of non-homegrown players in a squad up to 1995. Following the 1995 Bosman ruling, direct limits on EU players were banned.

Currently, regulations focus on mandatory homegrown quotas rather than strict foreign player caps. Will we see a time when the Premier League has a majority of non-English players and an Italian-type decline in our national team's success?

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