A new rival to the big five?

The big five European leagues could have a serious rival to their position as the best competitions in the world, if the 2024 world league rankings are anything to go by.

Brazil’s Série A is the sixth-highest ranked division in the global game, with an average TransferRoom Player Rating of 77.9 out of 100.

The Brazilian top flight, which featured the 2024 CONMEBOL Libertadores winners, Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas, in an all-Brazilian final, is only 1.4 behind Ligue 1.

France’s elite competition lost star man Kylian Mbappe last summer, after his move from Paris Saint-Germain to Real Madrid, and that helped Spain’s La Liga to climb up to second in the rankings, above the German Bundesliga.

The Premier League remains the elite competition in world football by TransferRoom’s Player Ratings metric. The PL’s average is 83.3, identical to its mean number at the end of 2023, but its lead over second place has gone from 2.2 to 2.7.

TransferRoom’s data-led Player Ratings feature gives clubs and agents an at-a-glance guide to a player’s overall quality in the wider landscape of their domestic league and internationally.

It also provides a tool to measure the relative strength of different leagues. By calculating the average Player Rating of first-team starters in each competition worldwide, TransferRoom has produced a league table of leagues to show the best divisions by the overall quality of players in the global game.

Everything you need to know about TransferRoom's Player Ratings

How is the TR Player Rating calculated?

Broadly, a player's rating takes into account the following:

• The quality of the team he plays for
• How regularly he plays
• The standard of competition he plays against
• His individual performance statistics, weighted by the stats most relevant to his position

Our sophisticated algorithm based on millions of data points is constantly being updated, so the ratings adjust with every game.

The other big movers

It’s also been a year of growth for the Turkish Super Lig and the English Championship, moving up one place each to seventh and ninth respectively. 

The Belgian Jupiler Pro League climbs up two places into the top 10, level with the Eredivisie in the Netherlands, while the Greek Super League’s moved up four places in the league rankings, showing a big increase in quality across the competition. That coincides with Olympiakos’s first-ever major European trophy, the UEFA Europa Conference League, in 2024.

The Saudi Pro League has also risen one place to 15th, after rising up to 16th last year, showing further progress for a competition that was heavily invested in during 2024. Here you can see how their data stacked up last year after the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema arrived during a breakthrough 2023.

How clubs and agents can accelerate their success on TransferRoom

Aver 800 clubs and 550 Trusted Agencies worldwide get access to an unrivalled network of decision makers across 128 leagues. They can see real-time player data and market intelligence, such as the TransferRoom Player Ratings this list is built on.

The TransferRoom Player Rating is designed to give clubs and agencies a quick, easy-to-understand measure of a player’s quality, to help with the process of finding the right opportunities and level both for their players and the potential signings they are targeting.

They also have access to TransferRoom's Expected Transfer Value and a host of other tools to give them the edge in recruitment.

Agents, gain instant access to the key people at over 800 clubs worldwide and get verified by your players by becoming a TransferRoom Trusted Agent here.

Clubs, find out how to join the 800 clubs on TransferRoom and accelerate your success in the transfer market here.