Gambia drop seven places in January FIFA Ranking

Scorpions of The Gambia

The Scorpions of The Gambia have dropped seven places to 138th in the latest FIFA Coca-Cola World Rankings released on Thursday.

The Scorpions were adjudged the 131st best football playing team in the world according to the ranking released earlier in December.

Their drop comes after been inactive since their 2-0 win at home to Tanzania in September 2013 in the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

The Scorpions also lost ground in the continental rankings, dropping two places to be ranked 41 with 202 ranking points.

Meanwhile, Ivory Coast remain at the summit of African football with 912 points which put them in the 17th position in the world while Ghana retained their 24th spot in the world and second in Africa.

Algeria stay third on the continent after amassing 792 points which places them in the 27th spot in the world.

Spain, Germany and Argentina hold the first, second and third spots in the world respectively as FIFA Confederations Cup champions Brazil retained their tenth spot in the world.

As expected, there have been very few changes to the first edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking in 2014, with football having come to a halt in many places over the New Year period.

Only 18 friendlies have been included since December’s edition, five of which took place in 2013, with the remaining 13 in the first half of January 2014.

There was no movement whatsoever in the top 25, with Spain still holding a comfortable lead over Germany and Argentina.

Saudi Arabia (73rd, up 14) and Egypt (31st, up 10) have made the biggest climbs, both benefiting from the devaluation of older matches. Five other teams have managed to move up at least five places: South Africa (54th, up 8), United Arab Emirates (63rd, up 8), Belize (152nd, up 7), Oman (79th, up 6) and Mali (40th, up 5).

More movement is to be expected in the February edition of the FIFA Ranking, which will take into account all the results from the 16-team CAF African Nations Championship, which is underway in South Africa. The tournament is exclusive to players based in their home countries.

The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 13 February 2014.