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.

When Drains and Gains Coincide: Migration and International Football Performance

“…in Gelade and Dobson (2007), while others (Macmillan and Smith, 2007;Leeds and Leeds, 2009) try to overcome this problem by including dummies for former republic or communist members. 13 We do not include 2006 and 2010 World Cup appearances in order to avoid endogeneity.…”

“…A similar approach is undertaken Next, a temperature variable is introduced to take into account the effect of climate on football performance. Following earlier contributions (Hoffmann, Lee and Ramasamy, 2002;Macmillan and Smith, 2007), we measure temperature by the squared deviation of average annual temperatures from 14° C in the capital city. The coefficient of this variable is expected to be negative.…”

“…5 See e.g. Gerrard (2002), Magee and Sugden (2002), Andreff (2004), Poli (2006; Darby (2007aDarby ( , 2007b, Darby, Akindes and Kirwin (2007 Empirical studies have shown that economic, demographic, cultural, historical and climatic factors are important determinants of international football performance (Hoffmann, Lee and Ramasamy, 2002;Houston and Wilson, 2002;Torgler, 2006;MacMillan and Smith, 2007).…”

The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance

“…Starting with Hoffmann et al (2002) and followed by Torgler (2004), Macmillan and Smith (2007), and Leeds and Leeds (2009), this research has shown that a country's wealth, its sports culture, and its climate have a significant impact on its performance in international soccer competitions. These results are similar to those of studies of the determinants of Olympic success (see, e.g., Bernard and Busse, 2004;Hoffmann et al, 2004;Johnson and Ali, 2004;Trivedi and Zimmer, 2013).…”

Intrinsic classes in the Union of European Football Associations soccer team ranking

“…• Stefani 1997 pioneering survey of the major world sports rating systems, including soccer through FIFA 1 rules, is first to be noted [20] [22]; such a theme being reconsidered by…”