Explaining International Soccer Rankings

Abstract

Existing research on the determinants of FIFA's international soccer rankings suffers from serious statistical problems, particularly sample selection bias and nonnormal errors. The authors correct for this by extending the data set by an additional 100 countries. Furthermore, they find important roles for new variables in the form of the size of population and a long history of international soccer in explaining world football rankings. The authors also investigate the determinants of an alternative ranking measure to that constructed by FIFA.