The football statisticians, CIES Football Observatory, report that Nigeria had no fewer than 292 of its citizens plying their trade in foreign leagues, with 84% of them playing in various leagues across Europe.
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Nigeria becomes ninth biggest football exporter in the world
Nigeria is a football-loving country with 83 percent of Nigerians reported to be interested in soccer and 65 percent play the sport.
Super Eagles team
Brazil was also ranked the country with highest nationals playing in foreign leagues (1,202 expatriates), with Portugal been the prime destination of most Brazilian players. The Caribbean country is followed by France (781) and Argentina (753). The nationals from these three associations make up 22.7% of the total number of expatriates.
This portion increases to 43.5% when taking into account the top ten principal exporting countries, which includes Nigeria.
In the continental ranking of Africa, Nigeria occupied the first position ahead of Ghana (236), Senegal (176), Cameroon (174) and Ivory Coast (163).
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Also, the biggest exporter at CONCACAF level is the United States (130 representatives abroad), while Japan tops the list for the AFC (also 130 expatriates).
A German-based NGO, PLAY!YA, on May 2, 2017 raised concern about the rate of football players’ trafficking in Nigeria and, indeed Africa.
The organisation noted that these players are literally trafficked and exploited for economic gains.
“It is a business scheme where players don’t enjoy but agents make billions in monetary terms,” the organisation reported.
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