Jamaica plummet16 spots in FIFA rankings
Published:Thursday | April 14, 2011 | 12:00 AM
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
Jamaica and Cuba suffered significant drops in the latest Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) world rankings released yesterday.
But this has not impacted on their standing in the Caribbean, as they remain the top two sides in the region.
The Jamaicans, the Digicel Caribbean Cup champions, dropped 16 places and the Cubans 18 spots to 64th and 82nd, respectively, in the world.
In a shake-up of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) top five, Trinidad & Tobago have moved up to No. 3 and Haiti to No. 4, after Grenada dropped five places in the world to 99th and are now the CFU No. 5.
antigua reach top-100
A little further down, the only other major news is that Antigua & Barbuda have advanced one place to reach the top-100 in the world for the first time, since the world rankings were launched 18 years ago.
The rest of the rankings remain largely unchanged, with Guyana and Suriname slipping in their standing in the world.
FIFA reported that 124 international matches were played since the last edition of the world ranking five weeks ago, which has doubled the total number of games played for the year to 248; and all have impacted in determining the latest rankings.
Of the 124 matches contested, 50 were qualifiers for confederation championships (29 in Europe and 21 in Africa). The other 74 games were friendly internationals.