Data on European football clubs' player transfers, as found on Transfermarkt, since the 1992/93 season (where possible - some data begins at a later date, see table below).
IMPORTANT: As of July 2022, transfer fees are now in EUR (taken from the .com Transfermarkt site), not GBP (taken from the .co.uk Transfermarkt site) due to a distortion of older fees being converted with a recent exchange rate.
Transfers can be found in the data/ directory, in .csv format. Data is from the top 25 first-tier football leagues by revenue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue):
| League | Country(ies) | Revenue (€ mil) | Filename | Transfer data year beginning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premier League (EPL) | England Wales | 6,100 | premier-league.csv | 1992 |
| Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División (La Liga) | Spain | 3,400 | primera-division.csv | 1992 |
| Fußball-Bundesliga (Bundesliga) | Germany | 3,000 | 1-bundesliga.csv | 1992 |
| Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A (Serie A) | Italy | 2,300 | serie-a.csv | 1992 |
| Championnat de France de football (Ligue 1) | France Monaco | 1,700 | ligue-1.csv | 1992 |
| Major League Soccer (MLS) | United States Canada | 1,490 | major-league-soccer.csv | 1995 |
| Campeonato Brasileiro Série A (Brasileirão) | Brazil | 1,120 | campeonato-brasileiro-serie-a.csv | 1995 |
| Chinese Football Association Super League (CSL) | China | 945 | chinese-super-league.csv | 1993 |
| Russian Premier League (RPL) | Russia | 876 | premier-liga.csv | 1992 |
| J1 League | Japan | 860 | j1-league.csv | 1995 |
| Turkish Süper Lig | Turkey | 670 | super-lig.csv | 1992 |
| Eredivisie | Netherlands | 578 | eredivisie.csv | 1992 |
| Liga MX | Mexico | 555 | liga-mx-apertura.csv | 1996 |
| Primeira Liga | Portugal | 524 | liga-nos.csv | 1992 |
| Liga Profesional de Fútbol | Argentina | 490.8 | superliga.csv | 2014 |
| Belgian First Division A | Belgium | 445 | juliper-pro-league.csv | 1992 |
| K League | South Korea | 287 | k-league-1.csv | 1992 |
| Saudi Professional League (SPL) | Saudi Arabia | 254.6 | saudi-professional-league.csv | 2007 |
| Scottish Premiership (SPL) | Scotland | 237 | scottish-premiership.csv | 1999 |
| Swiss Super League | Switzerland Liechtenstein | 230 | super-league.csv | 1992 |
| Austrian Football Bundesliga | Austria | 224 | bundesliga.csv | 1992 |
| Danish Superliga | Denmark | 197 | superligaen.csv | 1992 |
| Categoria Primera A | Colombia | 176 | liga-dimayor-i.csv | 2009 |
| Allsvenskan | Sweden | 156 | allsvenskan.csv | 2001 |
| Eliteserien | Norway | 152 | eliteserien.csv | 1992 |
| Header | Description | Data Type |
|---|---|---|
club_name |
name of club | text |
player_name |
name of player | text |
position |
position of player | text |
club_involved_name |
name of secondary club involved in transfer | text |
fee |
raw transfer fee information | text |
transfer_movement |
transfer into club or out of club? | text |
transfer_period |
transfer window (summer or winter) | text |
fee_cleaned |
numeric transformation of fee, in EUR millions |
numeric |
league_name |
name of league club_name belongs to |
text |
year |
year of transfer | text |
season |
season of transfer (interpolated from year) |
text |
country |
country of league (contextual only - has no impact on scrape result) | text |
New leagues can be exported by adding rows to the config/league-meta-expanded.csv file and running src/scrape-history.R. Required columns are league_name, league_id and country. To get league_name and league_id, extract these from the transfermarkt URL for any leagues' transfer history:
www.transfermarkt.com/{LEAGUE_NAME}/transfers/wettbewerb/{LEAGUE_ID}/
For instance, the Belgian Juliper Pro League has a url as follows:
https://www.transfermarkt.com/jupiler-pro-league/startseite/wettbewerb/BE1
The country variable is only present for context (has no impact on the data scrape), and can be entered maually.
NOTE - When scraping new leagues, it is recommended to remove all the leagues that have already been downloaded (i.e., only include new leagues in the config/league-meta-expanded.csv file). This cuts on processing time and server load.
Config:
config/league-meta.csv- Legacy list of leagues to scrape (from forked repo).config/league-meta-expanded.csv- Full list of leagues to scrape (top 25 globally by revenue).
R:
src/scrape-summer.R: retrieves latest summer window's data and appends new observations to CSVs indata/src/scrape-winter.R: retrieves latest winter window's data and appends new observations to CSVs indata/src/scrape-history.R: retrieves transfer history by league and exports to CSVs indata/src/functions.R: local R functions used elsewhere
- Refactor
club_involved_nameto use full team name (non-abbreviated) - Enable Github Actions to automate Summer & Winter scrapes
All squad data was scraped from Transfermarkt, in accordance with their terms of use.