Transfer Market

Portugal: 2019-2022 transfer market analysis

We analyse Portugal's transfer market in its last six windows (2019-2022): average value, destination of players or most expensive transfers.

Following our analysis of the French and CONMEBOL markets, we at Driblab have set out to analyse how the Portuguese Liga BWIN transfer market has performed in its last six transfer windows (this analysis does not include the 2022 summer market which has just started).

Referred to as the sixth biggest league in Europe, the Portuguese Liga has become, mainly in the last 20 years, one of the most interesting markets for big clubs and top leagues and a great financing opportunity for Portuguese clubs' sporting models, which are able to make every investment profitable on a regular basis. Thanks to our extensive database, not only related to performance but also to market analysis, we will learn more about the particularities of Portuguese football.

This analysis is only a small part of all the information we can offer on the Portuguese market.
Do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

In our database we count all the operations (sales, transfers and free players) carried out from the summer of 2019 until the winter market of 2022.

  • In that period, 757 operations were accounted for, of which 48% were carried out in Portugal (First and Second Division).
  • Meanwhile, 36% were made in UEFA territory.

However, when we exclude transfers and players released from contract, filtering and selecting only the monetary operations (only 120 of the 757 operations had economic value), we find the following table:

  • 55.8% of the monetary sales were to Europe, with 31.7% of them going to the top five European leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1).
  • 22.5% of the transactions with economic value were carried out within Portugal.

    Regarding the value of the sales, we have separated the transfers by value ranges.
  • Of the 120 sales with economic value, 23 transactions were for 10 million euros or more.
  • Of these, 12 sales were for more than 20 million euros, a very high amount considering that we are only talking about the last six markets.

Equally interesting is the age at which players are transferred. Portuguese football is characterised by extraordinary academies and scouting teams, and the great explosion of Portuguese football at federative level means that young talent is highly valued by the big European leagues or those with the capacity to invest.

  • As we can see here, almost 38% of transfers are of players under 23 years of age.

Among all the transfers mentioned, as we have mentioned, 12 of these sales were for more than 20 million euros, with Joao Félix as the most expensive sale, at 127 million euros.

In total, Portugal has moved 608 million euros in the last six transfer markets.

We are Driblab, a consultancy specialized in the statistical analysis of players and teams; our work is focused on advising and minimizing risk in professional football decision-making in areas related to talent detection and footballer evaluations. Our database has more than 200,000 players from more than 180 competitions, covering information from all over the world. Here you can learn more about how we work and what we offer.

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