La Liga giants Barcelona have produced more footballers currently playing in Europe's top leagues than any other club, according to new research by the CIES Football Observatory.

There are 43 different players who have come through Barca's La Masia academy currently plying their trades in the "big five" of Spain's La Liga, the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1.

Manchester United come second in the rankings with a total of 36 players developed, followed by Real Madrid [34], Olympique Lyon [33] and Paris Saint-Germain [27].

Barca's total includes 13 players currently at the Camp Nou, as well as 30 playing elsewhere including Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas, Bayern Munich's Thiago Alcantara, Porto's Christian Tello and Stoke City pair Bojan Krkic and Marc Muniesa. The Catalan club's youth development facilities and coaching is widely admired, however their failure to comply with recruitment regulations has led to FIFA imposing a 12-month transfer ban upon them which is currently in force.

Barcelona top homegrown talent table with 43, according to @sportCIES research. Man Utd in 2nd http://t.co/askWSFp75t pic.twitter.com/tkWgbQC9sy - ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 28, 2014

Taking into account all 98 clubs surveyed, Real Madrid are second behind Barcelona in the number of players developed in-house which are now playing elsewhere. Stars including Juventus' Alvaro Morata, Atletico Madrid's Juanfran Torres, Valencia's Rodrigo, Fiorentina's Borja Valero and Napoli's Jose Callejon are all products of the Bernabeu club's La Fabrica youth set-up.

La Liga sides Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad top the list of the clubs who currently employ homegrown players -- with 15 apiece due to their emphasis on nurturing and promoting Basque talent. Athletic have also produced top players now elsewhere including Manchester United's Ander Herrera, Bayern's Javi Martinez and Juventus' Fernando Llorente.

Relatively smaller clubs who have produced many top players include Rennes [24 in total], Lens [22], Atalanta [22], Espanyol [21] and Montpellier [21]. The highest ranked non-European producer of talent for the big five leagues is Argentine outfit River Plate.

While Arsenal have managed 22 -- 15 of which are playing at another "big five" club -- other English clubs Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham have produced just 12 players each in total, the same number as La Liga's Rayo Vallecano and Ligue 1's Guingamp.

The research also found that Ligue 1 club squads contained the highest proportion of home-grown players [24.6 percent], followed by La Liga [20.4 percent], Bundesliga [16.4 percent], Premier League [13.9 percent] and Serie A [9.6 percent].

The International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) is an independent study centre created in 1995 as a joint venture between FIFA, the University of Neuchatel, the City and State of Neuchatel.