FIFA World Rankings

History

In December 1992, FIFA first published a listing in rank order of its member associations to provide a basis for comparison of the relative strengths of these teams. From the following August, this list was more frequently updated, to be published most months. Significant changes were implemented in January 1999 and again in July 2006, as a reaction to criticisms of the system. Historical records of the rankings, such as listed at FIFA.com, reflect the method of calculation in use at the time, as the current method has not been applied retrospectively to rankings prior to July 2006. Membership of FIFA has expanded from 167 to 209 since the rankings began; all 209 members are currently included in the rankings.

1993–1998 calculation method

The ranking formula used from August 1993 until December 1998 was very simplistic and quickly became noticed for its lack of supporting factors. When the rankings were initially introduced, a team received one point for a draw or three for a victory in FIFA-recognised 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.

1999 ranking system update

In order to meet the objective of fairly and accurately comparing the relative strengths of various national sides, the system was updated in 1999. The major changes were as follows:

Two new awards were introduced as part of the system:

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

1999–2006 calculation method

In January 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.

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. 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.

Rank leaders

When the system was introduced, Germany débuted 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 América 2007 in July, Brazil returned to the top, but were replaced by Italy in September and then Argentina in October.

In July 2008, Spain took over the lead for the first time, having won UEFA Euro 2008. Brazil began a sixth stint at the top of the rankings in July 2009 after winning the 2009 Confederations Cup, and Spain regained the title in November 2009 after winning every match in qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

In April 2010, Brazil returned to the top of the table. After winning the 2010 World Cup, Spain regained the top position and held it until August 2011, when The Netherlands reached the top spot for the first time, only to relinquish it the following month.

In July 2014, Germany took over the lead once again, having won the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In July 2015, Argentina reached the top spot for the first time since 2008, after reaching both the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final, as well as the 2015 Copa America Final. In November 2015, Belgium became the leader in the FIFA rankings for the first time, after topping their Euro 2016 qualifying group. Belgium led the rankings until April 2016, when Argentina returned to the top.

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". 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 October 2009 ranking was used to determine the seeds for the 2010 FIFA World Cup final draw. The March 2011 ranking was used to seed the draw for the 2012 CAF Men's Pre-Olympic Tournament second qualifying round.

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.

Criticism

Since their introduction in 1992, the FIFA World Rankings have been the subject 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 in 2006, to the surprise of even their own players. However, criticism regarding the unrealistic ranking continued even after the introduction of the new formula. Israel's climb to 15th in November 2008 raised a few eyebrows even in the Israeli press, with the team missing a huge opportunity to break into the top 10 after conceding a last gasp equaliser against Latvia. Similarly, Belgium's rank of world number 1 in November 2015 was met with skepticism in the press, given that Belgium had only played in one tournament in the past 13 years.

Prior to July 2006, one of the main criticisms 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. This criticism has lessened somewhat with the introduction of a new formula, reflecting results over a four-year period, introduced in July 2006. However, problems remain, particularly that hosts of some major tournaments do not take part in qualifying rounds, and instead participate only in friendlies which offer fewer points.

This has been a factor which has resulted in 2014 World Cup hosts Brazil falling to a record low ranking of 22nd in the world. The perceived flaws in the FIFA system have led 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 system has been criticised for being open to abuse. National teams can maintain a higher average score by playing fewer friendly matches, particularly against weaker opponents. For example, Switzerland were seeded for the 2014 World Cup draw, largely thanks to only playing three friendly matches in the previous year. Switzerland would have reduced their rating if they had played any more friendlies, as their average score was greater than the maximum possible score from winning a friendly match against the top-ranked nation.

Romania were one of the surprise seeds for the 2018 World Cup preliminary draw after taking advice from a consultant and playing only one friendly in the year before the draw.

Lastly, the use of regional strength multiplier in the ranking determination formula, further reinforces and perpetuates the bias for and against certain regions. FIFA's use of regional multiplier is the primary reason why most teams in AFC and CONCACAF have significantly lower FIFA rankings compared to their Elo rating based rankings.

Current calculation method

After the 2006 FIFA World Cup, a revised calculation procedure for the FIFA rankings was introduced, with 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:

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.

International "A" matches

In October 2012, FIFA released a press circular defining what is considered to be an international "A" match.

For the purposes of the ranking, FIFA defines an international "A" match as a match between two FIFA members for which both members field their first representative team ("A" team).

The FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking is based on a list of all international "A" matches that are recognised by FIFA.

International "A" matches include matches played as part of the FIFA World Cup, FIFA World Cup qualifiers, FIFA Confederations Cup, continental final tournaments, continental qualifying competitions and international friendlies.

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.

Until November 2012, in two-legged play-offs, if Team A lost the first leg 2 – 0, then matched the result in the return leg and won after a penalty shootout, it received two points. However, if Team A won the return leg by one goal only, being eliminated in the process, it received 3 points. FIFA fixed this flaw starting with the November 2012 ranking.

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. FIFA also stated, however, that it did not plan to make any adjustment for teams that qualify directly for major tournaments.

The match status multipliers are as follows:

Opponent strength

A win against a very highly ranked opponent is a considerably greater achievement than a win against a low-rated opponent, thus the strength of the opposing team is an important 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:

with the exceptions that the team ranked #1 is given a multiplier of 2, and teams ranked 150th and below are assigned the minimum multiplier of 0.5.

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.

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.

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

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 the last three World Cups. Their values are as follows:

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

FIFA changed the formula used to compute the confederation weightings after the 2010 FIFA World Cup without public announcement. Without this modification, UEFA's multiplier would have dropped for the first time below 1, with CONMEBOL remaining the only confederation with a multiplier of 1.

The confederation weighting for AFC was increased in August 2011 from 0.85 to 0.86 after a computer programmer found an error in FIFA's calculations.

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:

If a team exceeds the assessment period without playing a match, it is temporarily removed from the rankings, and is reinstated as soon as it plays a match again. The most recent team to be temporarily absent from the rankings is São Tomé and Príncipe (reinstated in November 2011, after having been removed in December 2007).

Ranking formula

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

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.

Examples

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

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:

More examples:

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

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 that finishes top of the FIFA World Ranking. Argentina are the Team of the Year for the second time in the 23-year history of the rankings. Brazil hold the records for most consecutive wins (seven, between 1994 and 2000) and most wins overall (twelve). The table below shows the three best teams of each year.

Best Mover of the Year

The Best Mover of the Year was awarded to the team who 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 points it earned during the year (y). The team with the highest index on this calculation received the award. The table below shows the top three best movers from each year.

The award has not been an official part of the awards since 2006.

While an official award has not been made for movements since 2006, FIFA has released a list of the 'Best Movers' in the rankings since 2007.

An example of the informal on-going "Mover of the Year" award is the recognition made by FIFA to Colombia in 2012 in an official press release. However, the calculation methodology had changed to the difference in ranking points over the course of the year (rather than the methodology used in the official award from 1993 to 2006). The results for latter years are based on a similar methodology.

Ranking schedule

Rankings are published monthly, usually on a Thursday. The deadline for the matches to be considered is usually the Thursday prior to the release date, but after major tournaments, all games up to the final are included.