Football: Fifa world ranking-Seychelles ranks 199th worldwide |16 May 2013

With just 22 points, Seychelles is only 10 places off the bottom of the 209-nation ranking. San Marino, Bhutan, and Turks and Caicos Islands are the three bottom countries and they don’t have any point.

Spain leads the ranking with 1,538 points followed by Germany with 1,428, Argentina with 1,296, Croatia with 1,191, Portugal with 1,163, Colombia with 1,154, England with 1,135, Italy with 1,117, Netherlands with 1,093 and Ecuador with 1,058. Previous world leaders France and Brazil are ranked 18th and 19th respectively with 914 and 902 points. 

In Africa, Seychelles is ranked 51st out of 54 countries. Only South Sudan (20 points), Somalia (14 points) and Djibouti (11 points) are ranked below Seychelles in the African ranking dominated by the Ivory Coast with 1,008 points (12th worldwide).

Ghana (874 points), Mali (826), Nigeria (780), Algeria (735), Tunisia (647), Zambia (628), Burkina Faso (587), South Africa (541) and Equatorial Guinea (535) complete the top-10 ranking in Africa.
Madagascar (47th in Africa and 188th worldwide with 51 points), Mauritius (48th in Africa and 189th worldwide with 50 points) and Comoros (49th in Africa and 192nd worldwide with 41 points) are ranked above Seychelles.

It is not long ago when Seychelles was climbing the world football ladder, and the country was ranked ahead of nations like New Zealand, Mozambique, Mauritius and India. In fact, Seychelles was equal with Kenya in the ranking in 129th place. That was back in October 2006 when the country achieved it’s highest ever ranking in world football.

With its 36th place in Africa, Seychellois supporters were filling up the Stad Linite to see the country’s national team hold their own against African heavyweights like Tunisia and Mali. Many will remember the team’s famous win against Zimbabwe.

Those days are now long gone and Seychelles’ footballing status has since declined. There was cause for optimism when Seychelles moved up to 175th place in August 2011 after the country’s team won the gold medal in the Indian Ocean Island Games on home soil. But soon after the country’s ranking started plummeting again.

Surely this is a cause for concern, but it cannot only be attributed to bad performances, but also due to the fact the country’s national team has not had much international exposure since then. Therefore the country has failed to garner enough points to improve its position.

The Seychelles Football Federation’s decision to appoint highly experienced Dutch coach Jan Mak to take Seychelles forward has been met with some optimism and local fans will soon have an idea of where this takes the team when we take part in the forthcoming Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup in Zambia from July 6-20.
We also publish the Africa ranking released earlier this month.

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May 2013