In Berlin today (6 July 2006), three days before the final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, FIFA presented the revised FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The new method will be applied immediately after this year's FIFA World Cup™, with the first new FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking to be published on 12 July. "We have acknowledged the need for a substantial revision. I am convinced that our experts have come up with a satisfactory solution for a new way of calculating the ranking. We are aware that it is difficult to meet everybody's expectations, but are confident that the new system will provide an accurate measure of the strength of each of our member associations," said Blatter.  

Since its introduction in August 1993, the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking has become a regular part of international sports reports and an important indicator for FIFA's 207 member associations to find out where their respective teams stand in world football and how they are progressing.
 
Nevertheless, the increasingly high profile of the world ranking also attracted some criticism indicating that its calculation formula was too complicated. Therefore, in 2005, under the chairmanship of Michel Platini (France) and Ángel María Villar Llona (Spain), the FIFA Technical and Development Committee and the FIFA Football Committee decided to revise the ranking in order to simplify the way in which it is calculated.

A multinational group comprising FIFA staff and external experts was subsequently formed to find a new procedure for drawing up the world ranking. Extensive tests and assessments were then carried out, which - following a number of presentations - reached their conclusion at the end of 2005.
Transparency and simplicity - the key principles guiding the revision - have been combined with sporting criteria and statistical requirements to establish the new and simplified method of calculation that the FIFA Executive Committee ratified at its meeting in Leipzig, Germany, on 7 December 2005.

The most important change to the calculation of the ranking is that it will no longer take into account the last eight years of results but only the last four. At the same time, all of the other factors previously taken into account (result, importance of match, strength of opponents, regional strength, number of matches considered) were tested, analysed and, in some cases, totally revised. In fact, two of the factors that were previously used (goals scored and home advantage) will no longer have any impact on the ranking.

Next year, the official website of the football's world governing body, FIFA.com, will also offer an online tool that will make it possible to carry out hypothetical calculations for all teams based on the consolidated database of FIFA's Information Services Department.