Academy Rankings 2025/26: How the research was done

Behind this year’s Academy Productivity Rankings sit 2,067 players, 23 senior competitions and, for every one of those players, an individual research record tracing where he was developed and what the evidence for that is.

It is the broadest and most detailed methodology used since the study began in 2016, and this piece explains how it works: how the population of players was defined, how each player’s Academy history was reconstructed, how his senior career was valued and how that value was divided when more than one Academy played a part in his development.

Each stage was expanded or improved for this seventh edition. An AI-assisted research process allowed us to search public sources more widely and consistently for source-backed Academy histories, particularly for less prominent players whose pathways are hard to trace in the widely used football databases. Competition weightings were recalibrated using Opta’s league-strength ratings, minutes played were introduced as a limited secondary factor and stronger evidence about the length of Academy spells enabled a more informed division of credit between clubs.