FIFA Ranking: Confederation weighting factor calculation

Three days ago I received from FIFA's media department a detailed description of the confederation weighting factor calculation. Hats off to them - they are the only (con)federation to actually reply to e-mails. UEFA, CAF, CONCACAF, AFC and OFC should take a couple of public relations classes. Special note: CFU reply to e-mails too. I was actually trying to get an interview with FIFA's General Secretary, Mr. Jérôme Valcke, regarding these questions.

Now, on to the method.

In the revised ranking procedure the weighting factor is determined on the basis of the last three World Cup final rounds. To calculate the confederation weights the following steps are carried out (see also the table below):

1) The perspective is confined to interconfederational matches in the framework of World Cup finals, i.e. matches between teams from the same confederation are excluded in order not to distort the calculation (see row „total games“ in the following table).

2) Calculation of the number of interconfederation matches won by each confederation (see row „win“).

3) Calculation of the average number of won interconfederational matches by confederation (see row „av. per game“):

av_{Year x} = av. per game = win/total games

4) Calculation of the average number of won interconfedertional games over the past three World Cup final rounds by confederation (see column „av 94-02):

av_94-02 = (av₉₄+av₉₈+av₀₂)/3

5) Calculation of the confederational weighting factor on the basis of a comparison with the best confederation (see column „weight“).

weight_{Conf x} = ⁴√(av_{94-02 of Conf x}/ av_{94-02 of best Conf})

Supplementary conditions:

a) if weight_{Conf x} < 85 =""> weight_{Conf x} = 0.85

b) Confederations not participating in World Cup final rounds (e.g. OFC) will be assigned the value of the weighting factor of the weakest confederation.

Note: Test calculations have shown that using the “pure differences” documented in column „av 94-02“ would lead to an exaggeration of strength differences in the calculation of the world ranking. Using the fourth root instead of the pure differences reduces the differences between confederations and thus ensures that the confederational weighting factor only has a moderate effect. The first supplementary condition plays a similar role: Fixing the minimal confederational weight at a value of 0.85 ensures that the top teams from weaker confederations can still reach good positions in the world ranking.

		1994	1998	2002	1994 -02	av 94-02	weight
Game total		52	64	64	180
Interconfederational game total		36	49	54	139
UEFA	total games	30	39	44	113
	win	14	20	18	52
	av per game	0.47	0.51	0.41	1.38	0.46	1.00
CONMEBOL	total games	17	21	20	58
	win	8	8	10	26
	av per game	0.47	0.38	0.50	1.35	0.45	0.99
CONCACAF	total games	8	10	10	28
	win	2	2	4	8
	av per game	0.25	0.20	0.40	0.85	0.28	0.88
AFC	total games	7	12	17	36
	win	2	1	5	8
	av per game	0.29	0.08	0.29	0.66	0.22	0.83 => 0.85
CAF	total games	10	16	17	43
	win	2	3	4	9
	av per game	0.20	0.19	0.24	0.63	0.21	0.82 => 0.85

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Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.