Fiji soccer drops to 191, Fiji FA claims world ranking not a true indicatior of soccer standard

Fiji Football Association president Rajesh Patel claims that the latest FIFA world ranking does not give a true indication of the standard of the sport in the country.

This comes after the national men’s football team dropped nine spots to 191 in the ranking released last week.

This put Fiji’s position even lower than minnows Samoa (187) and Tonga (189) in the Oceania region.

Patel said there was rankings procedure in place.

He said the ranking were determined by the number of friendly matches and FIFA tournaments played.

“The FIFA ranking does not give any status to a member association where more money is given,” Patel said.

“Recently Brazil won the Confederations Cup final against Spain when the nation was ranked 22. Spain was then and is still ranked number one.

“Fiji hasn’t played international matches which has seen our rankings drop. We will play international matches and the rankings will get better.

“It doesn’t mean that our rankings has dropped that our standard of soccer has gone down. Many people are not aware as to how FIFA rankings work.”

Fiji’s best ever ranking of 94 was recorded in July 1994.

-fijitimes