WITH Football around the world at a standstill because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the sport’s world governing body, FIFA, recently released their latest world rankings which is very much reflective of the current situation affecting sports globally.

According to FIFA, like the many other international federations, ongoing measures to combat the spread of Covid-19 have resulted in little football of late and, consequently, next-to-no movement in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.

This means that Guyana’s senior men’s national team, the Golden Jaguars, will remain in their 166-place on the latest rankings.

Guyana has not played since their November 18, 2019, 1 – 1 draw with the Reggae Boyz (Jamaica) in Kingston.

The Coach Marcio Maximo-led team was scheduled to face Barbados last month (March) in a home-and-away CONCACAF Gold Cup playoff, but the pandemic forced the confederation to shelve all football until international and local health officials deem things ‘normal’ again.

A whole raft of international fixtures, including qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup and other major tournaments, were postponed, while dates were redrawn for the showpiece men’s events such as the Olympic Football Tournament, CONMEBOL Copa America and UEFA EURO.

Amid this upheaval, the Ranking were impacted by just four matches – all friendlies – and, as such, remains all but identical to the previous edition.

The solitary change sees South Sudan move into joint 168th position with Bermuda after the latter dropped a Ranking point, thanks to a 2-0 defeat in Jamaica (48th, unchanged) on 11 March.

The five other teams involved in friendly matches since the global ladder’s last update were Panama (played twice – 81st, unchanged), Uzbekistan (85th, unchanged), Belarus (87th, unchanged), Guatemala (130th, unchanged) and Nicaragua (151st, unchanged).

After a long period testing and analyzing the best way to calculate the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, a new model took effect in August 2018 after approval by the FIFA Council.

This new version developed by FIFA was named “SUM” as it relies on adding/subtracting points won or lost for a game to/from the previous point totals rather than averaging game points over a given time period as in the previous version of the World Ranking.

The points, which are added or subtracted, are partially determined by the relative strength of the two opponents, including the logical expectation that teams higher in the ranking should fare better against teams lower in the ranking.