FIFA World Rankings , FIFA WORLD RANKINGS

The FIFA World Rankings is a ranking system for men's national teams in Association football, currently led by Spain. 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).

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.

[edit] History

In December 1992, FIFA first published a listing in rank order of its member associations provide a basis for comparison of the relative strengths of these teams. From the following August, with sponsorship from Coca-Cola, this list was more frequently updated, to be published most months.^[2] Significant changes were implemented in 1999 and again in 2006, as a reaction to criticisms of the system.^[3] Membership of FIFA has expanded from 167 to 208 since the rankings began.

[edit] 1999 update

When the rankings were initially introduced, a team received one point for a draw or 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 changes made the ranking system more complex, but helped improve its accuracy by making it more comprehensive.

[edit] 2006 ranking system update

FIFA announced that the ranking system would be updated following the 2006 World Cup. The evaluation period was cut from eight to four years, and a simpler method of calculation is now used to determine rankings.^[4] Goals scored and home or away advantage are no longer taken into account, and other aspects of the calculations, including the importance attributed to different types of match, have been revised. The first set of revised rankings and the 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 scepticism 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 appear to lend some credence to the criticism.

[edit] 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 1994 FIFA World Cup 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 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2000 European Football Championship. Success at the 2002 FIFA World Cup restored Brazil to the top position, where they remained until February 2007, when Italy returned to the top for the first time since 1993 following their 2006 FIFA World Cup win in Germany. Just one month later, Argentina replaced them, reaching the top for the first time, but Italy regained its place in April. After winning the Copa America 2007 in July, Brazil returned to the top, but were replaced by Argentina in October. In July 2008, Spain took over the lead for the first time, having won UEFA Euro 2008.

[edit] 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, and claims that they create "a reliable measure for comparing national A-teams".^[2] They are used as part of the calculation, or the entire grounds to seed competitions. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification tournament, the rankings were used to seed the groups in the competitions involving CONCACAF members (using the May rankings), CAF (with the July set of data), and UEFA, using the specially postponed November 2007 ranking positions.

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.

[edit] 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,^[5] and the United States reached fourth in 2006, to the surprise of even their own players.^[6]

One of the main criticisms^[7] prior to July 2006 was that the rankings considered the performances of teams over an eight year period, and that teams' ranking positions did not correlate to their recent performances.^[5] This criticism has lessened somewhat with the introduction of a new formula, reflecting results over a four year period, introduced in July 2006.

[edit] Current calculation method

After the 2006 FIFA World Cup, 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.^[2] 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.^[2] 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:

Teams' actual scores are a result of the average points gained over each calendar year; matches from the previous four years are considered, with more weight being given to recent ones. Teams must have played at least 5 matches within the last twelve months to gain ranking points.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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,^[8] 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.^[9] FIFA also stated, however, that it did not plan to make any adjustment for teams that qualify directly for major tournaments.^[10]^[11]

[edit] Opponent 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.

with the exceptions that the team ranked #1 is given a multiplier of 2.00, and teams ranked 150th and below are assigned the minimum multiplier of 0.50.

The ranking position is taken from the opposition's ranking in the most recently published FIFA World Ranking before the match is included in the ranking calculation.^[12]

The rankings published before July 2006 are purely historical and are not used for the new ranking calculation. Instead, FIFA went back as far as 1996 to apply the new formula and is using those new rankings for the current calculations.^[13]

See the detailed break-down of point totals for teams from the top 20 in the October 2007 rankings.^[14]

[edit] 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. Their values are as follows:^[15]

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

$Regional\ strength\ multiplier\ = \frac{Team\ \mathit{1}\ regional\ weighting\ +\ Team\ \mathit{2}\ regional\ weighting}{2}$

[edit] 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:

São Tomé and Príncipe were eliminated from the rankings list in December 2007 having exceeded four years without playing a match.

[edit] Ranking formula

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

$Ranking\ points\ =\ 100(Result\ points\ \times\ Match\ status\ \times\ Opposition\ strength\ \times\ Regional\ strength)$

Results for all matches played in the year are averaged together (assuming at least five matches have been played). The average ranking points for the four previous years, weighted by their multiplier mentioned above, are added together to arrive at the final ranking points.

[edit] Examples

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

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

Conesto gets more points than Bestrudia for defeating the same team (Amplistan) because of the higher weighting of its confederation.

[edit] 1999-2006 calculation method

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 women's and junior teams, for example the FIFA Women's World Rankings. The women's rankings were, and still are, based on a procedure which is a simplified version of the Football Elo Ratings.^[16]

[edit] 1993-1999 calculation method

The ranking formula used from 1993-1999 was very simplistic and quickly became noticed for its lack of supporting factors. Teams received 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw.

[edit] Awards

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

[edit] Team of the Year

Team of the Year is awarded to the team whose best seven matches of the year received the greatest number of points overall. The table below shows the 3 best teams of each year.^[17]

[edit] 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.^[2] The calculation used is the number of points the team has at the end of the year (z) multiplied by the number of points it earned during the year (y). The team with the highest index on this calculation receives the award. The table below shows the top 3 best movers from each year.^[18]

[edit] Ranking schedule

Rankings are published monthly, usually on a Wednesday. The deadline for the matches to be considered is the Thursday prior to the release date. ^[20]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ FIFA current ranking
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking Procedure". FIFA.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-28.
^ "Revised FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking", FIFA.com (2006-07-06). Retrieved on 28 March 2008.
^ "Great expectations", FIFA.com (2006-05-17). Retrieved on 28 March 2008.
^ ^a ^b ^c "The world rankings riddle", BBC Sport (2000-12-21).
^ "FIFA adapting new world rankings", Associated Press (2006-06-02).
^ "FIFA Rankings", Travour.com (2006-06-01).
^ Finals is used in this sense to mean the 'final tournament' (as opposed to the qualifying tournament)
^ "FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking: In focus" (PDF), FIFA.com (2006-07-07). Retrieved on 21 June 2007.
^ "2006 revision of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking: Frequently Asked Questions About the FIFA World Ranking" (PDF), FIFA. Retrieved on 21 June 2007.
^ However, 2010 FIFA World Cup hosts South Africa competed in CAF qualifying despite automatically qualifying for the World Cup; this is because CAF chose to combine the 2010 World Cup qualifying tournament with the qualifiers for the 2010 African Cup of Nations, an event for which South Africa had to separately qualify. South Africa failed to qualify for the 2010 African Cup of Nations.
^ FIFA Rankings: September 2008 errors (II)
^ FIFA miscalculated the rankings... or did they?
^ Calculation FIFA Coca-Cola world ranking October 2007
^ How are points calculated in the FIFA World Ranking?
^ "Women's World Ranking Procedure", FIFA.com. Retrieved on 28 March 2008.
^ Team of the Year Award on the FIFA website
^ Best Mover of the Year on the FIFA website
^ Best Mover of the Year, 2007 results on the FIFA website (PDF)
^ FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking Publication Schedule on the FIFA website

FIFA World Rankings

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