A six-season reading of how well each league gets its own signings right. The metric is simple and public: the average club hit rate, signing by signing, in each league.
Average club hit rate per league, mean of 2020 to 2025. A darker shade of blue indicates a higher hit rate. The ◦ symbol marks leagues with a mid-year calendar or Apertura and Clausura. The presence of the Championship, the English second tier, near the top is explained by a more experienced, lower-risk signing profile, and the pattern repeats year after year.
On the left, the club hit rate in each league, the market on its own. On the right, the result of the SigningLab Model in the same league, over the period we validated and published (2024 to 2025). We show the number. We do not detail how it is calculated.
| League | Club hit rate | SigningLab Model |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi Pro League (Saudi Arabia) | 39% | 89% |
| Primera A (Colombia) | 35% | 88% |
| Liga MX (Mexico) | 37% | 85% |
| Liga 1 (Peru) | 38% | 85% |
| Süper Lig (Turkey) | 38% | 84% |
| Primera División (Chile) | 37% | 84% |
| Brasileirão Série B (Brazil) | 31% | 84% |
| Serie A (Italy) | 38% | 83% |
| Liga Profesional (Argentina) | 32% | 83% |
| Bundesliga (Germany) | 38% | 81% |
| Premier League (England) | 37% | 81% |
| Brasileirão Série A (Brazil) | 34% | 80% |
| J1 League (Japan) | 34% | 80% |
| La Liga (Spain) | 40% | 80% |
| Eredivisie (Netherlands) | 35% | 80% |
| Ligue 1 (France) | 38% | 80% |
| Primeira Liga (Portugal) | 35% | 79% |
| MLS (USA) | 33% | 78% |
| Championship (2nd tier, England) | 40% | 78% |
| Pro League (Belgium) | 37% | 77% |
| Premiership (Scotland) | 34% | 74% |
No league strays far from the same band. Even those that get the most right land near four in ten successful signings, and the hardest stay below a third. This is not a lack of competence on the clubs' part. It is the mark of a market that decides at high cost, under pressure and with little independent reading. It is precisely the space where a consistent method makes a difference.
The major European leagues and Saudi Arabia appear at the top. There is a structural reason for this. These are markets with more structured clubs, with squads already built around an idea of play, where a signing comes in to complement a group that already works. When the base is solid, the reinforcement has a better chance of paying off.
The leagues that are hardest to get right share a set of characteristics. They are markets of very high turnover, where many players change clubs every window. They tend to have strong coaching turnover, with frequent changes of system and of footballing idea. They take in an intense flow of young players reaching the senior level, still without a consolidated track record, and they live with many sales and with players coming and going between clubs. Each of these factors raises the uncertainty of a signing, and when they appear together they form the least predictable environments for getting a reinforcement right.
It is this profile that fits the leagues appearing lower in our reading, among them the two Brazilian divisions, the Argentine league and the North American one. These are fiercely contested competitions, with volatile squads, where the same name can perform in very different ways from one season to the next. The challenge is greater for the clubs and, in all honesty, also for those who build models for these competitions.