Official FIFA World Rankings

FIFA’s official ranking system for nations was officially introduced in 1992. Initially it was a rather simplistic system, in which a win gave a team 3 points whilst a draw gave the team 1 point. This created a number of problems, based mainly around the fact that it didn’t take into account that some countries continually played weaker nations and as a result would constantly rank higher than more accomplished sides.

After 7 years, FIFA decided to try and rectify this with a new system. In this system teams were awarded up to a maximum of 10 points for a result. The points took into account the following factors:

Goals scored/conceded
Home or Away game
Importance of match / competition
Regional strength

Another change was that losers were now able to win points, as points didn’t necessarily depend on winning, drawing or losing.

Whilst this system addressed some the issues, FIFA felt the need to make more changes so in 2006 the system was changed to what we currently see in use today.

Current FIFA World Rankings Calculation Process:

Since the changes in 2006 the following basic points allocation has been in use:

Win (no penalty shootout) – 3 points awarded
Win (penalty shootout) – 2 points awarded
Draw – 1 point awarded
Loss (penalty shootout) – 1 point awarded
Loss (no penalty shootout) – 0 points awarded

Each result has a modifier applying to it based on the status of the match:

Friendlies : 1.0X
World Cup and Continental Cup: 2.5X
Continental Cup and Confederation Cup Finals: 3.0X
World Cup Finals : 4.0X

Results against higher ranked teams should of course be worth more points, and their is a formula which takes this into account:

Opposition strength modifier : 200 – opposition ranking / 100

With the exceptions that the number one ranked is worth 2.0X whilst teams under 150 are a 0.5X modifier.

The last modifier applied is regional strength. Each confederation has a weighting:

UEFA: 1.0X
CONMEBOL: 0.98X
CONCACAF: 0.88X
CAF: 0.85X
AFC: 0.85X
OFC: 0.85X

Those weightings are used in the following formula to determine the modifier:

Regional Strength Modifier : Team 1 regional weighting + Team 2 regional weighting / 2

All of these factors are used to determine how many points either side get from an individual match.

Results over the past 48 months are added together and used that to determine overall ranking, with the following modifiers applied to reflect recent form:

Within the last 12 months 1.0x
12 to 24 months 0.5x
24 to 36 months 0.3X
36 to 48 months 0.2X

Sample FIFA World Rankings Calculation

The maximum number of points that can be won in one match is 2,400. Based on this example, the maximum number of points wasn’t obtained because CONMEBOL has a strength of less than 1.0.

Interesting Facts:

Coca-Cola have been the awards major sponsor since it’s inception
Brazil has dominated the ranking system since it’s inception. Holding the top spot for close to 11 years out of a possible 18 years.

Associated FIFA Awards:

FIFA team of the year:

Awarded to the team whose best seven matches received the most amount of points. This year’s winner was Spain.

FIFA mover of the year:

Awarded to the team that has made the best progress up the rankings chart for that particular year.

Most Successful teams:

Brazil and France have consistently been the most successful sides reflecting their dominance in World Football for the past twenty years.

Current FIFA World Rankings (source)

Last Updated 16 Oct 2009 | Next Release 20 Nov 2009

Ranking	Team	Pts Oct 09	+/- Ranking Sep 09	+/- Pts Sep 09
1	Brazil	1632	0	28
2	Spain	1629	0	41
3	Netherlands	1340	0	-36
4	Italy	1215	0	29
5	Germany	1161	-1	-25
6	Argentina	1103	2	-10
7	England	1101	0	-26
8	Croatia	1087	1	-14
9	France	1049	1	9
10	Portugal	1042	7	162
11	USA	1025	0	51
12	Russia	982	-6	-147
13	Switzerland	961	2	63
14	Cameroon	949	15	130
15	Czech Republic	928	3	58
16	Greece	921	-4	-50
17	Chile	909	4	63
18	Mexico	904	6	69
19	Côte d’Ivoire	903	1	51
20	Serbia	892	-7	-24