FIFA Men's World Ranking

About FIFA

FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association, which translates to International Federation of Association Football, in English.

It is the governing body of association football, more commonly known as soccer. Founded in 1904, FIFA oversees and organizes the most prestigious football tournaments worldwide, including the FIFA World Cup, the FIFA Confederations Cup, and the FIFA Club World Cup.

This dataset shows all team's rankings over the years, since 1992.

Score Calculation

In August 2018, a new model took effect, after approval by the FIFA Council. This new version developed by FIFA was named "SUM" as it relies on adding/subtracting points won or lost for a game to/from the previous point totals, rather than averaging game points over a given time period as in the previous version of the World Ranking.

The points which are added or subtracted are partially determined by the relative strength of the two opponents, including the logical expectation that teams higher in the ranking should fare better against teams lower in the ranking.

More details about the formula used in the algorithm, weightings of matches and other characteristics can be found here.

More on FIFA's official site