How FIFA world rankings are calculated

FIFA releases men’s team rankings every month which provide fodder for much debate and discussions among fans around the world.

Much thinking has gone into the process of calculating these rankings, which is explained here:

The bottom line of these calculations is: A team which does well in world football wins points, which help them to climb the world rankings.

Rankings are based on performances over past four years. The total number of points over that period is determined by:

• the average number of points gained from matches during the past 12 months, and
• the average number of points gained from matches older than 12 months (depreciating yearly).

Calculation of points for a particular match:

The number of points that a team can gain in a match depends on the following factors:

• Whether the match was won or drawn? (M)
• The importance of the match (depends on whether it is a friendly match or FIFA World Cup qualifier match) (I)
• Strength of the opposing team in terms of ranking position and the confederation to which they belong? (T and C)

All these factors are brought together in the following formula to determine the total number of points (P).

P = M x I x T x C

The following criteria is applied to the calculation of points:

M: Points for match result

Teams gain 3 points for a victory, 1 point is awarded for a draw while 0 points are given for a defeat.

In a penalty shoot-out, the winning team wins 2 points and the losing team gets 1 point.

I: Importance of match

Friendly match (including small competitions): I = 1.0

FIFA World Cup qualifier or confederation-level qualifier: I = 2.5

Confederation-level final competition or FIFA Confederations Cup: I = 3.0

FIFA World Cup final competition: I = 4.0

T: Strength of opposing team

The strength of the opposition is based on the formula: (200 – opponent’s ranking)

In an exception, the team at the top of the ranking is always assigned the value 200 and the teams ranked 150th and below are assigned a minimum value of 50. The ranking position is determined from the opponents’ ranking in the most recently published FIFA World Ranking.

C: Strength of confederation

When calculating matches between teams from different confederations, the average value of the confederations to which the two competing teams are from is used.

The strength of a confederation is decided on the basis of the number of wins by that confederation at the last three FIFA World Cup competitions. Currently their values are as follows:

Confederation Strength

UEFA/CONMEBOL 1.00

CONCACAF 0.88

AFC/CAF 0.86

OFC 0.85

Source: Fifa.com