NIGERIA RANK 44TH IN THE WORLD

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THE failure of the Super Eagles of Nigeria to book a place to play in next year's African Nations Cup in Equatorial Guinea and GaDon negatively affected the country's world ranking released yesterday by the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA).

Nigeria dropped by one step to rank 44th in the world with 625 points and sixth in Africa behind Cote d' Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Algeria and Senegal.

Cote dlvoire topped the African chart with 898 points to stand at 19 in the world, while Egypt despite their failure to book a place in next year's African Cup of Nations are number two in Africa as they ranked 29th in the world.

Ghana are the third ranked African country with 734 point to stand at 33rd in the world, while Algeria followed closely as Africa's number four and 3 5th in the world with 713 points.

Senegal with 626 points rank 42nd in the world and fifth in Africa to beat Nigeria who are placed on 44* with 625 points and sixth in the continent.

Nigeria dropped by one point as compared to last month's rankings.

Cameroon drop to 47* in the world with 600 points and seventh in Africa, with South Africa ranking 48* in the world to climb to the top 50 in the world, gaining two steps up, with 595 points. These placed them in the eighth position in Africa.

Rwanda has moved up 31 places to 112th place in the latest FIFArankings.

The great improvement comes weeks after they beat Benin 1-0 in the Africa Cup ofNations qualifiers.

On the other hand, the Uganda Cranes are still the best team in the region  according  to  the  rankings,

though they were held to a 0-0 draw by Kenya in the last round of qualifiers, where they missed out on next year's Africa Cup ofNations.

Eritrea's position remained unchanged at 190th, while Burundi also didnotmove at 140th.

The positions for Council for CECAFA countries are: Uganda 88, Sudan 102, Rwanda 112, Kenya 135, Ethiopia 136, Burundi 140, Eritrea 190, Somalia 192, Djibouti 195.

The world top four positions did not change with Spain standing firm in the number one spot in the world with 1624 points, they are followed closely in the second position by The Netherlands, Germany are placed third with 1352 points and Uruguay are fourth with 1230 points.

The almighty Brazil maintained their number live position in the world with 1144 points after gaining two steps compared to last month's ranking.

 

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