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This article is about the men's rankings. For women's rankings, see FIFA Women's World Rankings.

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The FIFA World Rankings is a ranking system for men's national teams in football (soccer). The teams of the member nations of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. A point system is used, with points being awarded based on the results of FIFA-recognized international matches. Under the existing system, rankings are based on a team's performance over the last four years, with more recent results and more significant matches being more heavily weighted to help reflect the current competitive state of a team.

The ranking system was most recently revamped after the 2006 World Cup, with the first edition of the new series of rankings issued on July 12, 2006. The most significant change is that the rankings are now based on results over the previous four years instead of the previous eight years. The change is perceived to respond to criticisms that the rankings do not effectively reflect the relative strengths of the national teams. (See section Criticism).

Other alternative systems have been devised, such as the World Football Elo Ratings, based on the Elo rating system used in chess, ranking teams on an all time basis. The UFWC (Unofficial Football World Championships) ranks teams on the number of times they have defended the Unofficial Football World Championship, an award devised solely for that purpose.

History

In August 1992 FIFA, working in co-operation with sponsor Coca-Cola, introduced a ranking system for senior national teams intended to provide a fair basis of comparison of the relative strengths of these teams. This system has been used by FIFA ever since and has seen some major changes to the calculation principles in its short history. Significant changes were implemented in 1999 and again in 2006, in order to allow FIFA's system to compete with the Elo ratings, which were considered a more accurate, credible guide to the teams' rankings.

1999 update

When the rankings were initially introduced, a team received one point for a draw and three for a victory in FIFA-recognized matches - much the same as a traditional league scoring system. This was a quite simplistic approach, however, and FIFA quickly realised that there were many factors affecting international matches. In order to meet the objective of fairly and accurately comparing the relative strengths of various national sides, the system was updated. The major changes were as follows:

• the point ranking was scaled up by a factor of ten
• the method of calculation was changed to take into account factors including:
  • the number of goals scored or conceded
  • whether the match was played at home or away
  • the importance of a match or competition
  • regional strength
• a fixed number of points were no longer necessarily awarded for a victory or a draw
• match losers were able to earn points

Two new awards were introduced as part of the system:

• Team of the Year
• Best Mover of the Year

The changes made the ranking system more complex, but helped improve its accuracy by making it more comprehensive.

2006 update

FIFA announced that the ranking system would be updated following the 2006 World Cup. The evaluation period has been cut from eight to four years and the rankings will be based on a simplified method of calculation. Goals scored and home or away advantage is no longer taken into account, and other aspects of the calculations, including the importance attributed to different types of match, have been revised. The revised rankings — and calculation methodology — were announced on 12 July 2006.

This change is rooted at least in part in widespread criticism of the previous ranking system. Many football enthusiasts felt it was inaccurate — especially when compared to other ranking systems — and that it was not sufficiently responsive to changes in the performance of individual teams. The recent and unexpectedly high rankings of teams from the Czech Republic and the United States were generally met with skepticism and negatively affected the credibility of the system in the eyes of many followers of the sport. The poor showings and early exit of these two sides from the 2006 World Cup competition appears to lend some credence to the criticism.

Rank leaders

When the system was introduced, Germany debuted as the top ranked team following their extended period of dominance in which they had reached the three previous FIFA World Cup finals, winning one of them. Brazil took the lead in the run up to the Template:WC, after winning eight and losing only one of nine qualification matches, while on the way scoring twenty goals and conceding just four. Italy then led for a short time on the back of their own equally successful World Cup qualifying campaign, after which the top place was re-claimed by Germany.

Brazil's success in their lengthy qualifying campaign returned them to the lead for a brief period. Germany led again during the 1994 World Cup, until Brazil’s victory in that competition gave them a large lead that would stand up for nearly seven years, until they were surpassed by a strong France team that captured both the Template:WC and the 2000 European Football Championship. Success at the Template:WC restored Brazil to the top position, where they have remained ever since on the strength of a Copa América 2004 victory and their continued dominant play. Italy rise to second following their FIFA World Cup victory, and within 100 hundred points of Brazil, who failed to meet expectations in the competition, Italy are possible challengers for the leader position.

Uses of the rankings

The rankings are used by FIFA to rank the progression and current ability of the national football teams of its member nations. The data is used by FIFA for very few things, as FIFA says they are only to create "a reliable measure for comparing national A-teams". However, one task they are used for is as part of the calculation to seed competitions. The rankings are also used to determine the winners of the two annual awards national teams receive on the basis of their performance in the rankings.

Seeding in the 2006 World Cup

Below is a table showing how the rankings (current and past standings) were used in combination with the previous World Cup performances of national teams, to determine their seeds for the Template:WC. It uses the points obtained from the Template:WC and the Template:WC averaged in a 1:2 ratio respectively, added to the average amount of points that each team has at three given dates (at ratio 1:1:1), December 2003, December 2004, and November 2005. This generates a view to how well the teams have performed over the last ten years (since the rankings in 2003 include results from eight years previous to that) with a specific focus on how the teams have performed in the FIFA World Cup on previous occasions. If a team did not qualify for the previous two World Cups, their final total will be significantly less, hence the Czech Republic received a low score for seeding, despite being ranked sixth, fourth, and second in the world at the given dates.

Criticism

Since their introduction in 1993, the FIFA World Rankings have been the matter of much debate, particularly regarding the calculation procedure and the resulting disparity between generally perceived quality and world ranking of some teams. For example Norway was ranked second in October 1993 and July-August 1995, and the United States reached fourth, to the surprise of even their own players.

One thing that had been criticised is that prior to July 2006 the rankings considered the performances of teams over an eight year period, and that teams' ranking positions did not correlate to their recent performances. This criticism should lessen with the introduction of a new formula, reflecting results over a four year period, from July 2006.

Another problem of the rankings is that a team that directly qualifies for a major tournament will not have the chance to gather points by playing competitive qualifying matches, but can only play friendly matches which are weighted lower.

The perceived flaws in the FIFA system has lead to the creation of a number of alternative rankings from football statisticians including the World Football Elo Ratings and the rec.sport.soccer Statistics Foundation rankings.

The current calculation method

After the Template:WC, a revised calculation procedure for the FIFA rankings was introduced; it is a significantly simplified procedure. The new rankings were compiled in response to criticism from the media. Meetings were attended by FIFA staff and external experts and a large amount of research was conducted by this group, resulting in the new ranking system. The new system was confirmed in Leipzig on 7 December 2005 by a committee of FIFA executives. Notable changes include the dropping of the home or away advantage and number of goals from the calculation, and the simplification of many aspects of the system.

The system, like the previous ones, is extremely similar to that of a league, though with changes made to ensure that it is still representative of the teams' performance despite playing differing numbers of matches per annum, and the differing strength of opposition that teams have to face. The factors taken into account are as follows:

• Match result
• Match status
• Opposition strength
• Regional strength

Matches within the previous four year period are included in the calculation, with more weight given to the more recent years.

Win, draw or defeat

In previous years a complicated system of points allocation was used, depending on how strong the opponent was, and how large the loss margin, which allowed weaker losing teams to gain points when playing a much stronger opposition, if they managed to put up a decent match. With the new system, the points allocation is simpler: three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss, in line with most league systems around the world.

In the event of a match being decided by a penalty shootout, the winning team receives two points, and the losing team one point.

Match status

Different matches have different importance to teams, and FIFA has tried to respect this by using a weighting system, where the most significant matches are in the World Cup finals, and the lowest weighted are friendly matches. FIFA states that it wishes to recognise that friendlies are still important, since they make up half of the competitive matches counted in the rankings.

The match status multipliers are as follows:

Opposition strength

Obviously, a win against a very highly ranked opponent is a considerably greater achievement than a win against a low-rated opponent, so the strength of the opposing team is a factor.

The new system uses an opposition strength factor based on team rankings. The previous system was based on points difference.

The formula used is:

Teams ranked 150th and below are assigned the minimum multiplier of 0.50.

• Example 1: the opposition team is currently ranked 8th in the world:

(200 – 8) / 100 = 1.92 so the opposition strength multiplier is 1.92

• Example 2: the opposition team is currently ranked 125th in the world:

(200 – 125) / 100 = 0.75 so the opposition strength multiplier is 0.75

• Example 3: the opposition team is currently ranked 188th in the world:

Below 150th, so the opposition strength multiplier is the minimum 0.50

Regional strength

In addition to the opposition strength multiplier, FIFA considers the relative strength of entire confederations in the calculation. Each confederation is assigned a weighting between 0.85 and 1.0, based on the relative performance of the confederations in qualifying for the last three World Cups. After the 2006 World Cup, the weightings are:

The multiplier used in the calculation is the average of the regional strength weighting of the two teams:

Assessment Period

Matches played over the last four years (48 months) are included in the calculation, but there is a weighting to put more emphasis on recent results. Previously an eight year period was used. The date weighting is as follows:

A team must play at least 5 matches per year to be included in the rankings.

Ranking formula

The final ranking points figure is multiplied by 100 and rounded to the nearest whole number.

Examples

The following examples use these hypothetical teams and confederations, and assume the games are played within the last 12 months:

• Amplistan is currently ranked 2nd in the world and is a member of confederation XYZ (weighting 1.0);
• Bestrudia is currently ranked 188th in the world and is a member of confederation ABC (weighting 0.88);
• Conesto is currently ranked 39th in the world and is a member of confederation QRS (weighting 0.98);
• Delphiz is currently ranked 30th in the world and is a member of confederation HIJ (weighting 0.94).

A friendly match is played between Amplistan and Bestrudia. Amplistan wins 2-1.

Bestrudia gets no ranking points because it lost the game, so all factors are multiplied by zero.

Amplistan's 141 ranking points are calculated like this:

• 3 points for the win;
• multiplied by 1.0 for match status (friendly match);
• multiplied by 0.50 for opposition strength (Bestrudia is ranked 188th, so it has the minimum 0.50 weighting);
• multiplied by 0.94 for regional strength (the average of the weightings for the two teams' confederations);
• multiplied by 100.

More examples:

Calculation method from 1999 - 2006

In 1999 FIFA introduced a revised system of ranking calculation, incorporating many changes in response to criticism of inappropriate rankings. For the ranking all matches, their scores and importance were all recorded, and were used in the calculation procedure. Only matches for the senior men's national team were included - separate ranking systems were used for other representative national sides, such as the women's and junior teams, for example the FIFA Women's World Rankings. FIFA did not use the same formula to determine its rankings for women's football. The women's rankings were based on a procedure which was a simplified version of the Football Elo Ratings.

Calculation method from 1993 - 1999

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Awards

Each year FIFA hands out two awards to its member nations, based on their performance in the rankings. They are;

Team of the Year

Team of the Year is awarded to the team whose best seven matches of the year received the most amount of points overall.

Best Mover of the Year

Best Mover of the Year is awarded to the team who has made the best progress up the rankings over the course of the year. In the FIFA rankings, this is not simply the team that has risen the most places, but a calculation is performed in order to account for the fact that it becomes progressively harder to earn more points the higher up the rankings a team is. The calculation used is the number of points the team has at the end of the year (z) multiplied by the number of point it earned during the year (y). The team with the highest index on this calculation receives the award. The table below shows the calculation for this award in 2002.

See also

• FIFA Women's World Rankings
• World Football Elo Ratings
• AQB Sports Ratings

References

1. ^ "FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings". FIFA. 30 May 2006.
2. "Great expectations". FIFA. 24 May 2006.
3. "Brazil riding the wave". FIFA. 18 Jan 2006.
4. "FIFA Seeding of the Teams participating in 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals". MapsofWorld.com. 31 May 2006.
5. "Entire FIFA Seeding of the Teams participating in 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals". MapsofWorld.com. 31 May 2006.
6. ^ "The world rankings riddle". BBC. 21 December 2000.
7. "FIFA adapting new world rankings". Associated Press. 02 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
8. "FIFA Rankings". Travour.com. 01 June 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. "The new FIFA rankings in focus" (PDF). FIFA. July 2006.
10. "FIFA Women's World Ranking Methodology". FIFA. 30 May 2006.

External links

• FIFA.com page where current rankings and statistics of all countries are listed
• Know about FIFA ranking
• How the rankings are calculated
• Calculation procedure in more detail {Pdf)
• FIFA rankings : A Guide to the very first '93 revision (RSSSF)
• World Football Elo Ratings
• Mark's World Football Rankings
• The Unofficial World Cup Rankings (Mansellini Research Group)

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Non-FIFA	CONIFA World Football Cup CONIFA European Football Cup CONIFA South America Football Cup CONIFA Africa Football Cup FIFI Wild Cup UIAFA Great European Tournament Island Games Micronesian Games Universiade World Unity Football Alliance
See also Geography Codes Player/Club of the Century Women's football

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