The FIFA Men's World Ranking (also referred to as the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking for sponsorship purposes) is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, first introduced in December 1992. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked the highest. As of October 2026, the rankings were led by Spain. Eight teams (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain) have held the top position, of which Brazil have spent the longest time ranked first.
A points system is used, with points being awarded based on the results of all FIFA-recognised full international matches. The ranking system has been revamped on several occasions, generally responding to criticism that the preceding calculation method did not effectively reflect the relative strengths of the national teams. Since 16 August 2018, the ranking system has adopted the Elo rating system used in chess and Go.
Calculation method
The current calculation method has been in use since August 2018, having been introduced in the ranking release after the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The formula is based on the Elo rating system and after each game points are added to or subtracted from a team's rating according to the formula:
where:
- Pbefore – the team's number of points before the game
- I – the importance coefficient:
- 5 – friendlies played outside the International Match Calendar windows
- 10 – friendlies played within the International Match Calendar windows
- 15 – Nations League matches (group stage)
- 25 – Nations League matches (play-offs and finals), Confederations' final competitions qualifiers, FIFA World Cup qualifiers
- 35 – Confederations' final competitions matches (before quarter-finals)
- 40 – Confederations' final competitions matches (quarter-finals, semi-finals, third place play-off and final)
- 50 – FIFA World Cup matches (before quarter-finals)
- 60 – FIFA World Cup matches (quarter-finals, semi-finals, third place play-off and final)
- W – the result of the game:
- 0 – loss after regular or extra time
- 0.5 – draw or loss in a penalty shoot-out
- 0.75 – win in a penalty shoot-out
- 1 – win after regular or extra time.
- We – the expected result of the game:
Teams' ratings are not reduced by losses in the knockout stages of final competitions. Since the April 2021 rankings, the teams' points are rounded to two decimal places, instead of being rounded to the nearest integer.
Transition
The current ranking system represented a major change from the previous versions. Its introduction began with a review that was announced by FIFA in September 2017, with a view to a decision on whether to make changes after the end of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification. FIFA announced on 10 June 2018 that the ranking system would be updated following the 2018 World Cup finals. The most significant change was to move away from a system in which points were accrued for victories or draws and then dropped after a certain date (as used in systems such as the ATP and WTA rankings in tennis), to a continuous rating system in which teams' points increase or decrease with the result of every match. In addition to this, the current calculation method abolishes the weightings designated for FIFA's continental confederations and retained the 2006 changes which ascribed no value to whether a game was home or away, or to the margin of the victory, unlike several unofficial Elo-based ranking systems.
FIFA had intended to introduce the new ranking system in July 2018 immediately after the FIFA World Cup, but with no matches scheduled between the July and August ranking dates, this was delayed until August 2018. There was speculation from football journalists such as ESPN's Dale Johnson that this was because projections of the new rankings had seen relatively little change in positions, with Germany – who had been eliminated in the first round of the World Cup – remaining as the top ranked team.
FIFA had originally planned to use the pre-existing world ranking points from June 2018 as the start value, but by the time of the rankings' release in August 2018, the starting points had been changed. The numbers entered into the calculations for the August 2018 ranking had an equal distribution of points between 1600 (Germany, as the previously top ranked team) and 868 (Anguilla, Bahamas, Eritrea, Somalia, Tonga and Turks and Caicos Islands, which had 0 points in June), according to the formula:
where R is the rank in June 2018. When two or more teams had equal ranks, the following team received the next immediate rank possible, e.g. if two teams had R=11, the following team had R=12, not 13. These numbers were then used to calculate new rankings, based on games played since June 2018. This produced a more dramatically altered ranking table, with Germany falling to 15th and 2018 World Cup champions France moving to the top of the ranking.
Analysis of model properties
A 2022 analysis of the ranking argued that the 2018 system is a clear improvement over the previous FIFA rankings. This analysis noted that, unlike a pure Elo rating which are a zero-sum game where the total number of ranking points stays constant, the FIFA rankings will slowly inflate the number of points. This inflation is caused by:
- Penalty shootouts, when and , thus ,
- The knockout stages of competitions, where in the ranking formula is forced to be non-negative. Most often, this rule is applied for the losing team, but is also done for the winner in shootouts when .
As a consequence, the total number of points slowly grows over time; between June 4, 2018 and March 31, 2022, there were 3,444 FIFA-recognized games, and the initial total value of points equal to 254,680 was increased by 2,099 points (approximately 0.8%). The 2022 analysis also attempted to assess the ranking's predictive value and found that, as with other Elo rating systems, it is possible to infer an implicit probabilistic model used by the algorithm. The 2018 ranking system offers improved predictive value over the previous FIFA rankings, but would be higher if it incorporated home field advantage and if the importance coefficient , were removed.
Historical calculation methods
In December 1992, FIFA first published a listing in rank order of its men's member associations to provide a basis for comparison of the relative strengths of these teams. From the following August, this list was more frequently updated, to be published most months. Significant changes were implemented in January 1999 and again in July 2006, as a reaction to criticisms of the system. Historical records of the rankings, such as listed at FIFA.com, reflect the method of calculation in use at the time, as the current method has not been applied retrospectively to rankings before July 2006. Membership of FIFA has expanded from 167 to 211 since the rankings began; 211 members are currently included in the rankings. The Cook Islands were temporarily removed from the ranking in the period from September 2019 until February 2022, after not having played any matches between 4 September 2015 until 17 March 2022.
1992–1998 calculation method
The ranking formula used from December 1992 until December 1998, was devised by two Swiss lecturers from Zurich University (Markus Lamprecht and Dr. Hanspeter Stam). The first formula was the most simple one, compared to later revisions, but it still required complex calculation. The main concept was to award points for matches played between all FIFA-affiliated national A teams, based on their results over the past eight years in FIFA-recognised matches (friendly matches, qualifying and finals matches for the World Cup, and qualifying and final matches for a Continental championship): Three points for a win, one point for a draw and no points for a loss. Results were not included from matches played by the FIFA association's: B teams, C teams, League XI teams, Women, U17, U20, U23 and futsal teams. The calculation formula was adjusted by the following factors:
- Points for winning, drawing or losing: Compensatory factors for the relative strength of the two teams involved are included, so that a victory of a lower-ranked team over a higher-ranked team is awarded a higher number of winning-points compared to a victory of a higher-ranked team over a lower-ranked team. Likewise the points from a draw will be higher for the lower-ranked team compared to the higher-ranked team.
- Points for goals scored or conceded: Goals are granted the same number of points whether or not they were scored in ordinary time or extended time. Zero points were granted from goals scored or conceded in a penalty shoot-out. Goals scored by a higher-ranked team against a lower-ranked team was also given slightly fewer points, compared to goals scored by a lower-ranked team against a higher-ranked team. Moreover, it was decided that the first goal scored by a team would be awarded more points compared to the subsequently scored goals in the same match. The total number of points from goals being scored or conceded, would be of such small scale, that the points awarded from the match result (winning/drawing) would always be of a higher value.
- Bonus points for away matches: Regardless of the final match result, the away team is given 0.3 extra points for playing a match away from home. There will be no away bonus points for the teams, if the match is played on neutral grounds.
- Multiplying factors for various competitions: The importance of the match will affect the points awarded to the teams, so that the sum of points granted through the first three rules mentioned above, will be multiplied by the following factors:
- Friendly matches: × 1.00
- Qualifier for Continental championship: × 1.10
- Qualifier for World Cup: × 1.25
- Finals of Continental championship: × 1.25
- Finals of World Cup: × 1.50
- Regional strengths and weaknesses: Regional strength is finally also factored into the award of points. In matches between teams from different continents, the granted points are multiplied by a factor of 1.0. In matches between teams from the same continent, the granted points will be multiplied by a factor of: 1.0 for European and South American teams, 0.9 for African and North+Central American teams, 0.8 for Asian & Oceanian teams.
- Overall resulting in this FIFA Rank calculation formula: (Sum of points from rule 1+2+3) * Rule4 Factor * Rule5 Factor, calculated for each recognized match played in the past eight years, with the total number of ranking points being the sum of points calculated for those matches.
In example, despite being undefeated for all matches played in 1994, the world ranking of England still dropped seven places from December 1993 to December 1994, because the team only scored points from six lower factored friendly games (as per rule 4). England did not play a single competitive match in 1994, because they had failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup and neither played qualifiers for the UEFA Euro 1996 as an automatically qualified host. The calculated results for the rankings published throughout 1992–1998, was at some point of time also rounded to the nearest integer by the official FIFA website, although other websites opted to publish the unrounded points of the ranking.
1999–2006 calculation method
In January 1999, FIFA introduced a revised system of ranking calculation, incorporating many changes in response to criticism of inappropriate rankings. For the ranking all matches, their scores and importance were all recorded, and were used in the calculation procedure. Only matches for the senior men's national team were included. Separate ranking systems were used for other representative national sides such as women's and junior teams, for example the FIFA Women's World Rankings. The women's rankings were, and still are, based on a procedure which is a simplified version of the Football Elo Ratings. The major changes were as follows:
- the point ranking was scaled up by a factor of ten
- the method of calculation was changed to take into account factors including:
- the number of goals scored or conceded
- whether the match was played at home or away
- the importance of a match or competition
- regional strength
- a fixed number of points were no longer necessarily awarded for a victory or a draw
- match losers were able to earn points
A contemporary website, described the 1999-revision of the calculation formula to be something that "slightly modified and more finely tuned the tried and tested method of calculation", with the most impactful revisions being that from now on only the seven best matches annually are taken into account (removing the previous advantage of playing additional matches) along with an adjustment of the regional strength factors for confederations and the match importance factors for various competitions. The new ranking system continued the practice of the previous one, to annually grant the awards: