Why FIFA Rankings are obsolete and they should be replaced
Disclaimer: one year ago, with some friends from the Facebook page “Calcio da dietro”, we tried to imagine a different football world. If they took care of club football, I covered int’l tournaments and possible change between confederations. This is just the first step of a series of pieces, which will translate what we wrote and thought for the sport we love and follow (you can find the full Italian guide here).
1st episode → Club World Cup could be better, but FIFA isn’t interested (here)
Among the tools that implemented today’s int’l football and the evaluations of national teams, there are for sure FIFA Rankings. FIFA introduced this innovation in December 1992, when the main football organization tried to rank their members according to results. After a little experiment, the list was adjourned every month and not from time to time. Some updates were made — in ’99 and 2006 –, but as today the FIFA system give us more than one doubt.
We don’t want to be fully on statistics (it’s not our job), but we have to start somewhere. FIFA Rankings today calculate points accumulated by a national team (P) with a specific algorithm for every match in the last four years.
P = M x I x T x C
In this case:
- M stands for the game’s result, with a range moving from 3 points for a win in regular time to 0 points for a loss without extra-time;
- I talks about the importance of the game, with a multiplier from x1 for a friendly match to a x4 for a FIFA World Cup final phase game;
- T represents the strength of the opponents. The result comes from a formula: (200-ranking position)/100;
- C, finally, indicates to what confederation the opponents belong: after 2014 FIFA World Cup, CONMEBOL weighs 1, UEFA 0,99 and the other confederations 0,85.
Anyway, criticism didn’t stop. Despite the adjustments after 2006, WC hosts of the last two editions — Brazil and South Africa — have been condemned to play only exhibition games and so to see their value falling down in the Rankings, since friendly matches give you less points (e.g. Brazil fell down to 22th place in May 2013, just before Confederations Cup). On the other hand, Switzerland, which could retain a first pot-spot for 2014 World Cup by playing friendly matches against weak opponents. Cunningly, Romania was advised a tactic like this just to be in the first pot ahead of 2018 FIFA World Cup Euro qualifiers and so have an easy draw.
In addition to this, FIFA gave up about their Rankings, but only in women’s football: for the Women’s World Ranking — introduced in 2003 –, FIFA uses a similar method to Elo Ratings. Yes, because meanwhile the world adjourned itself: not seeing any progress from FIFA (which in 2017 had 2016 UEFA Euro champions Portugal 8th-placed and quarter-finalist Belgium 5th-placed six months after the continental tournament), other tried something different.
If the Unofficial Football World Champioships title is a system that resembles the one from boxing and pro-wrestling — who wins, stays: at the moment I’m writing, Peru got this title and they’ll retained it at least to March 2018 –, which was invented from English journalist Paul Brown. Instead, there are the more reliable World Football Elo Ratings, build by the former chess player and physics professor at Marquette University, Élő Árpád Imre.
Elo Ratings have been way more credible than FIFA Rankings: this happened because Elo figured some variables out — like margin of a victory, importance of the match, home field advantage — which are actually accurate enough to obtain a better measurement.
Rn = Ro + KG(W — We)
In this formula, we feature:
- Rn, which is the new score of the team in question, while Ro represent the old one;
- K stands for the importance of the tournament played in that moment;
- G reports the Goal Difference in the final result;
- W is the final result of the game, while We indicates the expected result of that.
It’s not an accident if confederations disadvantaged by FIFA Rankings — AFC, CAF, CONCACAF and OFC — are instead in higher positions according Elo Ratings. Let’s take Elo Ratings (ER) for November 2017 and put it in comparison with FIFA Rankings (FR), maybe just considering the main team:
- Iran → FR — 32th, ER — 21th;
- Japan → FR — 55th, ER — 25th;
- South Korea → FR — 59th, ER — 37th;
- Australia → FR — 39th, ER — 33th;
- New Zealand → FR — 122th, ER — 71th;
- Fiji → FR — 178th, ER — 128th;
- Senegal → FR — 23th, ER — 24th;
- Nigeria → FR — 50th, ER — 41th;
- Morocco → FR — 40th, ER — 44th;
- Egypt → FR — 31th, ER — 48th;
- Mexico → FR — 16th, ER — 17th;
- Costa Rica → FR — 26th, ER — 30th;
- USA → FR — 24th, ER — 27th;
Cherry on the top of the cake? Elo Ratings consider results also for the football associations that are not FIFA full members. And that’s why Northern Cyprus is in the Top 100 with his team, overcoming even Gabon, Trinidad & Tobago and Palestine.
Author’s note in December 2017: apparently, FIFA will do the right thing because of the wrong reasons. England lost a spot in the first pot of 2018 FIFA World Cup draw due to the strange system of FIFA Rankings, so the main football organization will review their calculation methods. How and when… we’ll see.
