The AFC Member Association Ranking is a ranking system launched by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 2014. The ranking is based on the results of teams participating in the last four years of the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup, as well as the member associations' FIFA ranking. The ranking is used for example to decide who plays who in the Champions League preliminary rounds.
Contents
The AFC also publishes a club ranking, which currently only has informational value.
Calculation principle
The Member Association Ranking, or MA ranking is used to rank associations and also used for seeding teams in the competitions. It also is uses to allocate the number of entries and entry points to the competitions. There are however many shifts each year with associations not meeting off field requirements.
The ranking consists of two parts. First the average points the member association's clubs over the past four year (weighing 70%), and the member association's FIFA World Ranking (weighing 30%). The leading team in each category is given 70 and 30 points respectively. All other associations are adjusted proportionally to the leading team. So the theoretical maximum of the ranking is 100 points, when the association's team have won the most points in the four year ranking and also are the number one AFC team in the FIFA rankings.
Associations earn points in the ACL and ACC starting at the group stage by:
If an association has more than one team, the average points per team are used for the MA ranking.
Ranking
As of 30 November 2016
Source:AFC
There are 46 ranked associations, the only unranked one are the Northern Mariana Islands, who are not a member of FIFA.
Club Ranking
The club ranking is mostly an informative ranking and not used to seed clubs in the competitions for example.
Calculation principle
The team ranking is calculated as points earned in the past four years plus 20% of the MA ranking points (proportionally adjusted so that the top nation here gets 20% of 70=14 points).
The club ranking in contrast to the MA ranking gives points for some of the preliminary and play-off rounds.
Ranking
The top 20 clubs as of 26 November 2015 are as follows.
Future plans
The AFC have stated that the ranking eventually should be made up of 100% club performances and no FIFA world ranking points. In 2019 and 2020 the FIFA ranking will contribute 10% and from 2021 onwards 0%. The ranking shall also be renamed AFC Club Competition Ranking.