15/07/2010

World Ranking Calculation

The World Cup is over, and the world rankings have been readjusted as of yesterday (14th July). Unsurprisingly, Spain are top of the rankings with 1883 points. But how are the points calculated? FIFA has a simple formula based on several factors:

1 – Whether the match was won or drawn (M. The usual values apply – 3, 1, or 0. If the match is won in penalties, the winning team gets 2 points, and the losing team gets 1.
2 – The importance of the match (I)
Friendly: 1.0 points
World cup/continental qualifier: 2.5 points
Continental finals (eg: Euro) or FIFA confederations cup: 3.0 points
World Cup finals: 4.0 points
3 – The strength of the opponent (T)
Calculated by the following formula: [200 – position of opponent]/100 taken from the most recent FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.
Any team ranked below 150th gets an automatic rating of 0.5
4 – The continental confederation factor of the opposing team(C)
UEFA: 1.00
CONMEBOL: 0.98
CONCACAF: 0.85
AFC: 0.85
CAF: 0.85
OFC: 0.85

Then the final points are calculated as P = M*I*T*C*100

The maximum possible points from a World Cup match is 2,400.

Let's look at the World Cup final to show how this works.

Spain beat Netherlands outside of penalties, so for Spain, M=3. For Netherlands, it's equal to 0 so they get no points from the final.
The importance of the match is I=4.
The strength of Spain's opponent (Netherlands) = [200 – 4]/100 = T=1.96
And there's a continental confederation factor of C=1.00, as both teams are in Europe.
So in total, Spain's points from the World Cup final are:
P = 3*4*1.96*1*100 = 2352

That's only 48 points from the most you can achieve in a game!

Obviously, the actual FIFA ranking isn't calculated only from the last game a team played. If that were the case, Netherlands wouldn't have any points! Instead, and I'm not clear exactly how this works, the matches over the past four years are taken into account. Games in the last year are worth 100% of their points, 50% for those 1-2 years ago, 30% for those 2-3 years ago, and 20% for those 3-4 years ago.

(Source: Fifa.com This is a PDF so make sure you have Adobe Acrobat reader. It's free, so I'm not making them any money by telling you this.)

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