Were the Fifa World rankings rigged?

3 ⤊

Were the Fifa World rankings rigged?

Prior to the fifa world cup USA was ranked 5th in the world. If you dont believe me look it up on the interent. Yet they lost to Czech 3-0 (shouldve been 7-0 in my opinion many missed opportunities) only drew with Italy coz of an own goal by an italian player and lost to Ghana (2-1). And Ghana aren't even rated that highly I think 50th before world cup.

So did america pay fifa to be ranked so high. In my opinion USA should be at most 70-100th ranked in the world. NEVER HIGHER. Yet 5th!!! Higher than spain, england, italy and argentina. How was that possible!!!

2006-08-02 03:56:23 · 12 answers · asked by zooxat 1 in Sports ➔ Football ➔ FIFA World Cup (TM)

12 answers

The rankings are done based on a complex equation (like the BCS College Football rankings). It depends upon how many wins, strength of opponent, and how many goals for/against you have.

The USA definitely played like a 70-100th ranked team, but they shouldn't be ranked down there because of many of the wins they did accumulate over the prior 4 years. Should they have been ranked 5th, I don't know, probably not. Should Czech have been ranked 2nd, who knows. All I know is that the US had a miserable World Cup.

Keep this in mind too, the US wasn't the highest ranked team to not make it beyond the first round. Czech (then 2nd) also didn't make it.

So are they rigged? Possibly. Did the US pay? No. The equation needs to be worked on (like the BCS equation) and quite simply the US needs to play better.

2006-08-02 04:05:31 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋

Chris H has most of it correct above - except where he says the US is crap.

You cannot make any comparisons pre-cup to after cup in the rankings because the formula changed drastically.

To say the US paid to get a better ranking is actually opposite of what happened. Truth was the fact that the US got all the way to 5th is probably why they changed the system because even US fans didn't believe that.

New rankings aren't perfect and no system will ever be that has so many teams and so few "real" games that are played especially real games between regions. Though the new ones are probably closer to being accurate they should only be looked at as a relative comparison not an absoulte. The new ones rate the quality of the opponent and type of game. Most importantly greatly reduce the time frame from 8 to 4 years for which the data is pulled.

The 70-100 is way harsh but anywhere in the late teens to mid 20s would be a resonable ranking. The current ranking of 16 is a little high maybe but not outrageous.

The current top 20 is pretty good with the exception of Nigeria and Cameroon which did not even qualify for the cup so I'm not sure how long they will stay that far up.

2006-08-02 07:39:00 · answer #2 · answered by SoccerClipCincy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋

They were ranked 5th because prior to the world cup the rankings were based on the previous 8 years of football. They use a really complex method which took into account all the football matches played and gave them weight on the importance of the match and how recent the results were.
Because the US made it to the QF in 2002 and Holland didn't make it, and Argentina and France had nightmares they were ranked higher. Add to that the fact that in between world cups the US are playing such super powers as Panama and Hondurus then they win most of their matches, so there rankings get enormously inflated.
Then they come to the world cup. Realise that they're actually crap (like everyone knew after they lost to effectively the England B team) and get spanked in every match.
So the rankings aren't rigged, they're just crap.
FIFA have now changed the ranking policy to only count the last four years, but it's still gonna end up with some utter cack results.

2006-08-02 04:21:15 · answer #3 · answered by Chris H 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋

2006-08-02 06:41:00 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋

I think USA was ranked 5th because in the last world cup they reached to the quarter finals, while some of the titans like France and Argentina didn't get as far as we thought and the fact that holland didn't even participate!

But i also think its rigged in a way.

2006-08-02 04:09:18 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋

Because the FIFA ranking is a computer model and doesn't take many other factors into account like difficulty of team they play against. If the USA plays 30 games agaist Iceland and beats them everytime - they climb the rankings... The computer model is flawed and needs more variables.

2006-08-04 03:26:34 · answer #6 · answered by Steve M 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋

No they are not rigged. They just haven't found a system that ranks teams according to their true ability. The US losing to Ghana is not a true reflection of how good or bad they are. Any team can lose in a one off match and most of these African Countries couldn't hack it if they played top class opposition on a regular basis.

2006-08-02 04:30:22 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋

Not rigged, just somewhat bizzarre; a few contests ago (then) Czechoslovakia were ranked 2 despite not qualifying, this time the Czechs were ranked 2 again. England were (AFAICR) ranked sixth this time, which turned out to be about right.

2006-08-02 04:21:28 · answer #8 · answered by Stephen Allcroft 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋

The whole organization is corrupt. Could anybody explain how England moved from 10th to 5th, Brazil maintained first while Portugal moved from 7th to 8th. If anyone has any doubt look at these teams results over the last 4 years. Portugal has been robbed.

2006-08-06 02:20:11 · answer #9 · answered by John J 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋

Well Argentina were ranked 11th and USA wouldn't have had a chance against them so... probably.

2006-08-02 04:03:08 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋