FIFA Women's Ranking 2026

What is FIFA Women's World Ranking?

FIFA Women's World Ranking system came into existence in 2003. It is a system used for ranking of national women's football teams in the world. The national teams of FIFA, which is a world governing body of football, are ranked according to the result of their match with the highest ranked teams being placed at the top.

Why FIFA Women's World Ranking is used?

The latest FIFA Women's World Rankings helps FIFA - the global football body - promote women's football well. A realistic assessment of the teams also helps FIFA put every team in their deserving place. The ranking system also helps the stakeholders do a statistical analysis of teams and understand the growth/de-growth trajectory of a national football team and understand the state of women's football in that country. It also helps FIFA bring equal importance to women's football like men's game. The FIFA has a solid foundation of more than 3000 football games, since start of women's football in 1971, thus, it has a big pool of data.

The key criteria for FIFA Women's World Ranking is based on the result of the match, home vs away or neutral ground, importance of the match (world cup, multi-nation competitions, friendlies, friendlies between top ten ranked teams).

Obviously, winning or losing is the most important criteria, but goal difference and goals scored by the teams and their opponents are also taken into account.

The world cup and multi-nation competition games hold higher weightage as the teams will comprise strong line ups. While the friendlies generally do not possess full-strength squads, hence lesser weightage. However, international friendlies between top-ten ranked sides in the FIFA Women's World Ranking are given higher weightage. The difference in WWR between teams is also an important criteria.