African champions, Nigeria have moved up 10 places in the latest rankings released by World Football governing body, Fifa on Thursday.
The Super Eagles amassed 664 ranking points and are now ranked third in Africa and 34th in the world in the latest classification table.
Former Nigeria coach, Adegboyega Onigbinde described the rise of the Super Eagles in the monthly classifications as “good news.”
He said it was down to the Super Eagles’ performance at the 2014 Fifa World Cup finals in Brazil where the African champions reached the last 16.
“This is good news. I believe that we rose in the rankings because of our performances at the World Cup. The quality of friendly matches we played before the World Cup also helped as well,” Onigbinde told supersport.com.
He then noted that the development shows that Fifa is a “fair body” and puts to bed the controversy over the yardstick and criteria used to arrive at the rankings.
“Many people have always questioned the rationale behind the rankings but I believe it is now clear that Fifa is a fair body.
“Despite the imbroglio of the Fifa suspension of Nigeria from international football recently, we have risen in the rankings like we have never done in recent years.
“It is a clear indication that Fifa has a clear principle and system through which they arrive at the rankings,” he said.
Nigeria’s highest position in the Fifa rankings is fifth; a position they attained in 1994.
Criteria for arriving at a country’s placing/position on the monthly rankings is determined by the result(s) and number of matches placed by a particular country in the month under review.
The importance of the match, strength of the opposition and confederation strength weights are some of the other factors Fifa considers in arriving at a country’s eventual placing/position on the rankings.
Algeria, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Egypt and Ghana are the top five African countries in the latest Fifa rankings in descending order.
The top five countries, in ascending order in the world rankings are Belgium, Colombia, the Netherlands, Argentina and Germany.
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