Nearly 6,000 footballers left Ukraine because of the war

FIFA released its 2022 Global Transfer Report, showing a record 71,002 transfers in 2022, of which 21,764 were in professional football (men and women) and 49,238 in amateur football. In 2022, there were 20,209 international transfers in men's professional football, up 11.6% from 2021 and even higher than in 2019 before the CoViD-19 pandemic. Interestingly, only 2,843 transfers included financial compensation (that is, players were sold for money).

Another record: 4,770 clubs from 182 different associations invited players in 2022, up from 4,538 clubs in 2021.

A total of 17,291 players took part in transfers in 2022 (some of them changed teams several times a year), representing 183 nationalities.

Emilio García Silvero, FIFA Director of Legal and Compliance, commented: “The two-year negative trend in club spending on transfer fees reversed in 2022, with total spending last year reaching US$6.5bn, up 33.5%. more than in 2021, but still below the all-time high of 2019.”

The top ten player transfers alone accounted for 12.5% ​​of the total amount spent on transfer fees in 2022. Similarly, out of 2,843 transfers that included a fee, the top 100 players accounted for almost 50% of all money spent on transfer fees, with English clubs again topping the list. Their total spending passed the $2 billion mark for the first time and hit a record high of nearly $2.2 billion.

Clubs from France earned the most with $740.3 million, the largest share of any association. For the first time in history, Portuguese clubs have made more incoming transfers than clubs from any other association, with a total of 901 incoming transfers in 2022. On the other hand, Brazil made the largest number of outbound transfers, with a total of 998 Brazilian players leaving their country.

Impressive growth in women's football continues With the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand just around the corner (this year), it has helped increase interest in women's football in this part of the world. The impressive growth of professional women's football has continued into 2022. The number of international transfers has more than doubled since 2018. In 2022, the number of clubs participating in international women's transfers increased from 410 in 2021 to 500 last year, an increase of 22%. About these figures, Emilio Garcia Silvero, FIFA Director of Legal Affairs and Control, said the following words:

“All of this reflects the impressive strides being made as more and more female players continue to turn professional. In 2022, about 1,555 international transfers were registered, up 19.3% from the previous year, while 119 associations participated in international transfers.”

Amateur international transfers

But then FIFA publishes information that is especially interesting for Ukrainians. Unfortunately, due to the full-scale invasion, many football players left Ukraine. Let's talk about amateur football first, and then about professional football.

In 2022, there were more than twice as many amateur transfers as professional transfers, with 49,238 amateur players moving from abroad and joining a new association club. About 92.3% of these players were men. The global coverage of amateur football is truly impressive, with 204 of FIFA's 211 member associations involved in at least one transfer last year. The ongoing war in Ukraine also had a clear impact on amateur football performance last year, as Ukrainian citizens were by far the most represented group of all amateur players who moved to clubs from other countries in 2022. The total number of such transfers is 5910, which is more than 60% more than the 3661 transfers made by French players, the second largest group representing a single country. If we talk only about male football players, then Ukraine remains in first place (5741 players), and Germany is in second place (3225 players). Interestingly, in 2021, Ukraine was in 51st place (!) in this indicator - only 110 players.

If we talk about the countries to which Ukrainian amateur football players moved, then Germany is in first place - 2061 players. The second is Poland - 1387 players. And the Czech Republic is third with 704 players.

Shakhtar's sad record

In 2022, there were 236 outgoing transfers and 373 outgoing transfers in Ukrainian professional football. At the same time, 38 clubs bought players and only 18 sold at least for some amount. The expenses amounted to just over $50 million, while the income of Ukrainian clubs amounted to $82 million.

Most often, footballers in 2022 moved from Brazil to Portugal and vice versa (338 and 166 transfers, respectively). But if we talk about the amounts that clubs received for transfers as part of transfers from one particular country to another, then France is in first place, which sold 354 million players to England in 2022. In second place is Germany (also to England), and so on. In the picture, you can see that English clubs buy expensive and buy a lot (almost $2.2 billion, but earn much less on transfers (600 million).

If we talk about the clubs that spent the most money on buying players, then in 2022, 7 English teams were in the top 10 at once, and Manchester United topped the list.

But if we talk about the clubs that said goodbye to the players in 2022 (in this case, the word "sold" or even "let go" does not fit), then Shakhtar is in first place in the world (!) by a huge margin. 51 players left the Ukrainian club (not only the players of the first team are meant here). Dinamo Zagreb is in second place with 40 players, and Sporting Lisbon is in third place with 38 players. No other professional team in Ukraine has suffered as much due to the war with the Russian Federation as Shakhtar. At the same time, the Donetsk club, unlike other teams on this list, was forced to say goodbye to almost all the players, due to the fact that FIFA allowed to suspend the contract of players who played for Ukrainian clubs. Interestingly, in its global report, FIFA acknowledges that Ukrainian football has suffered greatly due to the war with the Russian Federation, but at the same time, the fact that FIFA itself contributed to this crisis is hushed up.

Anton Prokopov