Unmoved Nigeria Retain Fifth Spot in Africa

FIFA RANKING

Femi Solaja with agency report

Nigeria’s Super Eagles have remained in the list of Africa’s top five nations to be seeded for the 2022 World Cup playoffs scheduled for next year.

The three-time African champions retained their fifth spot in the continental and 36th in the global ranking for December released yesterday by FIFA despite not in action in the month under review.

There were speculations that Pharaohs of Egypt who are ranked sixth in the African log may leapfrog Eagles to the fifth spot due to their participation in the FIFA Arab Cup concluded in Qatar penultimate weekend.

Nigeria profited from FIFA/CAF’decision not to use participation in the Arab Cup tournament for the purpose of ranking teams in December.

Instead, CAF Executive meeting ruled that the seeded teams would be based on their respective ranking for the month after the last qualifying tournament in October.

In the December ranking released by FIFA yesterday, Egypt moved up in the global ranking from 45th to 44th, while Nigeria remained static at 36th.

The points earned by Pharaohs were not enough to send Super Eagles crashing out of the Top Five of African football. Nigeria will therefore remain one of the five nations to be seeded for the World Cup final playoffs.

Nigeria garnered 1478 points to stay in the 36th position in the world.

The Super Eagles are to be seeded alongside, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in Pot A and will have the slim advantage of playing the all-important second leg on home soil.

The draw ceremony is expected to hold either on January 22rd or 26th during the AFCON tournament in Cameroon.

In the global ranking, Belgium topped for the fourth consecutive year while the most improved side goes to Canada who garnered 130.32 points just as the host of the next FIFA World Cup, Qatar hit the 50th position for the first time.

Former World champions, Brazil and France joined Belgium to complete the top three of global standing.

Also in the month under review, Algeria, Egypt, Qatar and Tunisia played most games due to their participation in the FIFA/Arab Cup tournament just as Algeria, Qatar and Thailand had the most improved position of plus three.

The next FIFA ranking will be out on the 10th of February which is four days after the AFCON tournament.