but it's like 80% toward European, 20% toward Africa.

European poaching has a bunch of material advantages that make it an uneven playing field for players deciding where to play.

Take Abde for an example. He *might* make the spanish team in the future (honestly, I'd bet against him getting double digit caps for Spain, I'd love to be wrong), he was definitely going to make the Moroccan team and likely would have played. But with european leagues playing during AFCON (but not during Euros), barcelona wanted him to stay. And could also marshal arguments about exposure, profit, etc. It wasn't just a decision about which team he wants to play for and/or where he had a chance of playing--there were definitely forces pushing him toward spain.

Same thing happened to Munir until FIFA changed the rules (twice!) in part because Spain cheaply played him once or twice and then benched him when he was 20 and he was never going to play again for Spain's national team. Now he's a regular squad player for Morocco.

-----------
you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia