How does FIFA rank countries?

Question

Do they work on matches won, tournaments won or do they have a point system and how exactly does it work? For example, why is the Czech Republic ranked so high while they've never won a World Cup and why is Germany so low while they have won three? How accurate is FIFA's ranking system?

Answer 1

The ranking includes result from previous WC results
and last games in other tournaments

A good explanation on how is determined the points
can be found here (FIFA web site):
http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/rank/procedures/0,2540,3,00.html

And also here (wikipedia):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Rankings

In wikipedia link you can see why Czech is 2nd. Basically because the system used is not good enough. A new system will be announced after 2006 WC.

Check Here to view the current rank:
http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,2548,All-May-2006,00.html

Right now ranks:

1 Brazil
2 Czech Republic
3 Netherlands
4 Mexico
5 USA
5 Spain
7 Portugal
8 France
9 Argentina
10 England


Here you can see a rank based on all WC results,
its is NOT the FIFA ranking:
http://www.planetworldcup.com/NATIONS/maraton.html

PL W D L GOALS PTS
1.Brazil 87 60 14 13 191- 82 150
2.Germany 85 50 18 17 176-106 129
3.Italy 70 39 17 14 110- 67 103
4.Argentina 60 30 11 19 102- 71 77
5.England 50 22 15 13 68- 45 63
6.Spain 45 19 12 14 71- 53 56
7.France 44 21 7 16 86- 61 55
8.Sweden 42 15 11 16 71- 65 45
9.Netherlands 32 14 9 9 56- 36 43
10.Russia/USSR 37 17 6 14 64- 44 42

Answer 2

fifa rankings r based on results over the past 8 years so ur current team may not be very good but the ranking may be high
USA were ranked 5 in the world because the only teams they play are the likes of Canada and Guatemla

Ditto with Mexico

Answer 3

They pull names out of a hat and hope it works out ago.

Mostly some sides rankings are intelligble such as Brazil at 1, but then after that it is pretty much Rubbish. How else can the USA claim to be the 4th best in the World at "Soccer"

Answer 4

FIFA works on BIG money they want an interest in every continent to generate cash etc so they fix the rankings. How can the US be No 5 in the world unless it is fixed?

Answer 5

its ****. lets be honest why was USA 3rd at one point. how many world cups have they even got to never mind won. they play teams like jamica, costa rica and canada. they get points for that... while any of the european sides could face england,italy,france,germany.sweden etc etc.
fifa rated usa so high so they could try and get money from the american market. other then that i cant ever see why the usa would ever be ranked 3rd in the world with side slike brazil and argintina among others.

Answer 6

Magical dice

Answer 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Rankings

Answer 8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_qualification