FIFA recently released it’s latest rankings and there were few surprises, except one. Sitting proudly in 10th spot, sits the Egyptian National team moving up fourteen spots from the previous month. Quite an achievement for a team that recently won the African Cup of Nations and definitely a boost for fans of the Pharaohs who were disappointed at their team’s elimination from the World Cup in South Africa at the hands of their fierce rivals Algeria.

I feel I have to ask the question ” Is this ranking justified ? ” , and if not , then why not ?

FIFA’s ranking system has been has been soundly criticized on a regular basis since it’s inception back in 1992. Originally the rankings were based on results from the previous eight years of competition but in 2006, following some high profile concerns that questioned the system’s validity, FIFA changed the formula so that positions were now determined based on five years of results rather than eight. They are obviously meant to be a way of determining who are the better teams given that there is no “World League” in place to naturally determine who are the best teams. the rankings are also used to seed teams for tournaments to separate the better nations from knocking each other out in the early stages.

The concern with the way the system works is that it can falsely elevate a team’s ranking which in turn can affect the way tournaments are played.

Back in May 2006, both the United States and Mexico were ranked 5th and 4th respectively in the rankings. Both teams had runs of victories leading up to that point and rumors had surfaced that Mexico had even scheduled it’s fixture list with a view to achieving it’s highest rank possible. All well and good but what if World Cup draw seedings had been chosen in May 2006 for the June tournament that year ? Both Mexico and the US would have been chosen at the head of a Group when in fact hardly deserving of that status as neither country had played or won against a team of higher rank who played a full strength side. As a result of this, ranking systems were re-calibrated following the World Cup and both countries plummeted to 18th and 16th places. The new system shortened the number of years that were included in the statistics in order to give a more current value to the standings and it was hoped that future anomalies would be avoided.

However, Egypt’s current ranking brings a new set of problems. The Pharaoh’s win at the African Cup of Nations and the relative inactivity of some of the other nations above them led to the rise, but the glitch now in the system is that FIFA does not take into account the quality of tournament. They are afraid to rank the tournaments to avoid having to deal with fallout from their different continental associations and have preferred to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, Egypt temporarily benefit from the new system and will no doubt be relishing their new status among the top ten sides in world football.



Next month’s clash with England will be the acid test for the Egyptians provided that Fabio Capello fields a full team of top players and maybe the Pharaohs will give a good account of themselves but bookmakers are giving long odds for an away win at Wembley on March 3.