With another football World Cup imminent, we look at which London clubs have supplied the most players over the decades.
Thomas Tuchel has announced the 26-strong squad for the 2026 (Men's) World Cup Finals. Eight of those players, almost a third, are drawn from London clubs. New Premier League champs Arsenal dominate with four players (Eze, Rice, Saka and Madueke). Brentford, Chelsea, Palace and Spurs are all sending one player. Of these, Jordan Henderson becomes the first Brentford player to feature in an England World Cup Squad.
For a bit of fun, we thought we'd tally things up across all previous World Cups to see which teams have contributed the most.
The tournament dates back to 1930, though England did not participate until 1950. Since then, they've only missed three finals (1974, 1978 and 1994), and this year (2026) will be their 17th finals.
We've crunched the numbers for every tournament and worked out which clubs contributed the most players to the England football team over these 17 tournaments.
The top 10 clubs for England squad members 1950-2026
London clubs shown in bold font.
1. Man Utd (45)
2. Spurs (39)
3. Liverpool (34)
4. Arsenal (27)
5. Chelsea (26)
6. Man City (22)
=7. Everton (16)
=7. Newcastle (16)
=7. West Ham (16)
10. Wolves (13)
A good showing for the capital, with Spurs way ahead of other local clubs, but itself beaten into second by Man Utd. Note: individual players can count more than once towards their club's tally, if they were sent to multiple World Cups.
The top 8 London clubs for England squad members 1950-2026
1. Spurs (39)
2. Arsenal (27)
3. Chelsea (26)
4. West Ham (16)
5. Fulham (6)
6. QPR (3)
7. Crystal Palace (2)
8. Brentford (1)
These eight are the only London clubs to send English players to the World Cup .
The top 10 clubs for England squad members, 2002-2026
If we instead look at more recent 'form' and tally only the seven World Cups this century, then a surprisingly consistent ranking emerges:
1. Man Utd (21)
=2. Liverpool (18)
=2. Man City (18)
=2. Spurs (18)
5. Arsenal (17)
6. Chelsea (15)
7. Newcastle (8)
8. Aston Villa (7)
9. Everton (7)
10. West Ham (6)
Spurs remain the highest ranked London club, with Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham following in the same order as before. At time of writing, Spurs are still in danger of relegation to the Championship, which would mean that London's most successful club (in the admittedly tenuous terms of sending players to World Cups) could be second tier.
