Socceroos are Highest Ranked Team in Asia

The Socceroos are the highest ranked nation in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) at number 33 according to the latest FIFA World Rankings released today, ahead of Iran (now ranked 47 – down 24 places), Japan (49 – down 31 places) and Korea Republic (56 – down 27 places).

The Socceroos are the highest ranked nation in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) at number 33 according to the latest FIFA World Rankings released today, ahead of Iran (now ranked 47 - down 24 places), Japan (49 - down 31 places) and Korea Republic (56 - down 27 places).

While heartened by Australia-s ranking within its new Confederation, Football Federation Australia Chief Executive Officer John O'Neill was puzzled by the relatively modest improvement in Australia-s official position.

"While Australia-s move of nine places is obviously positive, it is a little perplexing when compared with some of the other ranking changes. It appears that there are countries, for example, that have had large improvements of 20+ places, to a position higher than Australia-s, when they did not qualify for the recent World Cup. While we understand that the ranking system considers several years-worth of results, Australia-s relatively meager improvement would not seem to accurately reflect the achievements of the Socceroos over the last year or so.

"We will be seeking further information from FIFA so that we can better understand the way the new ranking system works. That should help us address the apparent dichotomy between the many independent acknowledgements of the team-s performances on one hand, and these clinical but somewhat counter-intuitive official rankings, on the other.”