A more honest world ranking

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about the world ranking as it’s being used by the FIH: “Change or kill the world ranking“. As you will have guessed I’m not a big fan of the current ranking system in use. The system currently used by the FIH takes into account invitational tournaments such as the Champions Trophy. This is not fair because not every country is given the opportunity to join and gain points… Another error in the current system is it also counts points earned at continental championships, where again not every country is on level playing field. We can not compare the European Championships with 4 or 5 top nations competing to, for example, the Oceanic Cup where Australia and New Zealand are already earning top points just for showing up almost. So these points from continental championships should also be disallowed for an honest world ranking.

The only championships that should count towards a world ranking are the Olympics, the World Cup and the World League. So after having played the World League the new ranking would be:

world ranking dec2015

Check out my previous article to see the way points are being allocated. Click here to see the ranking used by the FIH today.

A more honest world ranking would also mean some major shifts in the ranking after the most recent World League results:

  • Australia take over the first position from The Netherlands
  • Germany drop from their traditional top 3 to rank 5
  • Belgium jumps from 6th to 3rd position
  • Pakistan drops to an unseen 15th position in the world

This would also mean another playing schedule for the Rio Games, where for example Belgium and Germany would switch pools.

Looking forward to your views on the matter… Do not hesitate to leave your comment below.