FIFA Women's World Rankings
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The FIFA Women's World Ranking is a ranking system for women's national teams in
association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
(commonly known as football or soccer) published by the international governing body
FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...
. , the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
is ranked #1. The rankings were introduced in 2003, with the first rankings published on 16 July of that year. FIFA attempts to assess the strength of internationally active women's national teams at any given time based on their past game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. , the ranking has 196 national teams. The ranking has more than informative value, as it is often used to seed member associations into different pots in international tournaments.


Specifics of the ranking system

*FIFA Women's World Rankings are based on every international match a team ever played, dating back to 1971, the first FIFA-recognized women's international between
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
and the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
. *FIFA Women's World Rankings are implicitly weighted to emphasize recent results. *FIFA Women's World Rankings are only published four times a year. Normally, rankings are released in March, June, September and December. (In World Cup years, dates may be adjusted to reflect the World Cup results.) The first two points result from the FIFA Women's World Rankings system being based on the
Elo rating system The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor. The Elo system wa ...
adjusted for football; in 2018, FIFA modified the men's ranking system to similarly be based on Elo systems after continued criticism. FIFA considers the ratings for teams with fewer than 5 matches provisional and at the end of the list. In addition, any team that plays no matches for 4 years becomes unranked; this inactivity limit was previously 18 months, but was extended in early 2021 (after the COVID-19 pandemic stifled a significant amount of international play).


Ranking schedule

Rankings are generally published four times a year. The next update is scheduled for 12 June 2025.


Leaders

As of the 6 March 2025 rankings release,
the United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
is the number one ranked team. The United States holds the record for the longest consecutive period leading the rankings of nearly 7 years, from March 2008 to December 2014. Before the 2023 World Cup, the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
had been the only two teams to lead the women's rankings, and these two teams also had held the top two spots in all but six releases, when Germany was ranked third (only
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
,
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
and Sweden had reached second during this time).


Ranking calculations

The rankings are based on the following formulae: :R_ = R_ + K (S_ - S_) :S_ = \frac :x = \frac Where The average points of all teams are about 1300 points. The top nations usually exceed 2000 points. In order to be ranked, a team must have played at least more than 5 matches against officially ranked teams, and have not been inactive for the last 48 months up to the date the rankings are published. Even if teams are not officially ranked, their points rating is kept constant until they play their next match.


Actual result of the match

The main component of the actual result is whether the team wins, loses, or draws, but goal difference is also taken into account. If the match results in a winner and loser, the loser is awarded a percentage given by the accompanying table, with the result always less than or equal to 20% (for goal differences greater than zero). The result is based on the goal difference and the number of goals they scored. The remaining percentage points are awarded to the winner. For example, a 2–1 match has the result awarded 84%–16% respectively, a 4–3 match has the result awarded 82%–18%, and an 8–3 match has the result awarded 96.2%–3.8%. As such, it is possible for a team to lose points even if they win a match, assuming they did not "win by enough". If the match ends in a draw the teams are awarded the same result, but the number depends on the goals scored so the results will not necessarily add up to 100%. For example, a 0–0 draws earns both teams 47% each, a 1–1 draw earns 50% each, and a 4–4 draw earns 52.5% each. ''Source''


Neutral ground or home vs. away

Historically, home teams earn 66% of the points available to them, with away teams earning the other 34%. To account for this, when two teams are not playing on neutral ground, the home team has its R_ inflated by 100 points for the purposes of calculation. That is, if two equally ranked teams playing at one team's home ground, the home team would be expected to win at the same rate a team playing on neutral ground with a 100-point advantage. This 100 point difference corresponds to a 64%–36% advantage in terms of expected result. The scaling factor remains the same (''c''=200).


Importance of the match


See also

* World Football Elo Ratings *
FIFA International Match Calendar The FIFA International Match Calendar (sometimes abbreviated as the FIFA Calendar) is an outline agreement between FIFA, the six continental football confederations, the European Club Association, and FIFPro, which sets out which dates can be us ...
* Statistical association football predictions * Geography of women's association football


References


External links

*
Women's World Ranking Procedure at FIFA.com

Women’s World Ranking Fact Sheet
{{Sport world rankings Women's association football Association football rankings
Association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
FIFA