Testing Fifa’s World Rankings

According to Fifa, England are the 5th best team in the world and Brazil the 14th; cue the gleeful mocking. Football’s governing body are often an easy target but there isn’t any empirical evidence to suggest they are wrong. Perhaps Fifa’s world rankings are correct and we are all missing a trick?

To put this to the test we have pitted Fifa against the bookmakers, using the European section of the World Cup Qualifiers as our sample.

The following table compares Fifa’s world rankings. A positive number means the home team are the higher ranked nation and a negative number means the away team are the higher ranked nation. By comparing the differences in world rankings, a ‘supremacy’ is produced.
E.g. England are ranked 202 places above San Mario.

All odds used are in decimal format.

From the table above there are three areas of interest.

Greece & Albania overpriced home wins
Greece and Albania enjoy slender ranking advantages over their opponents and are both priced at 2.25 to win at home. This compares favourably with Switzerland and Turkey who are both 1.73 to win, despite enjoying a similar ranking advantage over their opponents. 

Georgia overpriced for an away win
Georgia might be the away team, but they are almost 4/1 to beat a Finland team ranked 23 places below them.  Germany enjoy a similar superiority over Ireland, but are heavily odds-on. One of those prices must be out of line.

Austria & Croatia’s dominance underrated
Spain, Austria, Croatia, Ukraine and Sweden all enjoy a large ranking dominance over their opponents. All five teams are playing away from home, but Austria and Croatia are much bigger odds to win their matches, almost 4/5 compared to the long odds-on prices of the other three.

Suggested Bets
Greece to win at 5/4 (Boylesports)
Albania to win at 5/4 (Betfred)
Georgia to win at 19/5 (BetVictor)
Austria to win at 3/4 (William Hill)
Croatia to win at 4/5 (Blue Square)