Independent News and Views from the International Aussie Rules Community

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Men's World Rankings as at end 20th August 2017 (IC17)


There is currently no official system of World Rankings for Australian Football, as the international game is still mostly amateur, still maturing and there are often difficulties in nations having all their best players available. However, due to popular demand, worldfootynews.com has been providing rankings since 2006.

This is our first formal World Rankings since 22nd October 2016, and follows the completion of the 2017 Australian Football International Cup.

Australia retains its notional #1 ranking as unarguably the leading nation, and PNG's victory at IC17 kept their #1 contender position intact. In fact the top 5 positions were unchanged. The big changes were Croatia rising 5 places to 7th and China up 6 to 13. Perhaps unfairly France fell 3 spots to 17th courtesy of playing in the tough Division 1 (compare with Croatia's rise from dominating Division 2). We'd love to see more cross-over matches with sides touring outside of IC years which would help address that; a modified rankings system is not imminent. South Africa's slow decline continues. We welcome Indonesia and Pakistan as fully ranked for the first time (playing the necessary 8 games) and Sri Lanka's debut sees them onto the provisional list.


World Footy News Australian Football Men's World Rankings

(as at end of 20th August 2017, end IC17)

Rank        Team Points Games Rank Change
1 Australia -  0 steady
2 Papua New Guinea 61.99 39 steady
3 New Zealand 57.88 43 steady
4 Ireland 56.64 59 steady
5 Nauru 52.97 32 steady
6 United States 49.34 48 +2
7 Croatia 47.09 13 +5
8 South Africa 46.61 32 -2
9 Great Britain 46.23 64 -2
10 Canada 45.84 48 -1
11 Denmark 43.67 47 -1
12 Tonga 41.93 14 -1
13 China 39.91 25 +6
14 Fiji 38.01 19 -1
15 Germany 37.55 25 steady
16 Peace Team 36.46 11 +1
17 France 36.09 18 -3
18 Japan 35.06 34 -2
19 Sweden 34.18 39 -1
20 Indonesia 30.94 12 new
21 Pakistan 29.14 10 new
22 Finland 27.45 18 -2
23 India 20.71 21 -2
Prov. Sri Lanka 37.41 5 *
Dorm. Iceland 35.64 4 **
Prov. Indochina 34.00 2 *
Prov. Timor-Leste 27.40 6 *



* Nations marked in grey with an asterisk have played less than eight (8) matches under our criteria, and currently hold provisional ranking points, but are not yet officially ranked.
** Countries that have not played a qualifying full field match for 4 years are considered dormant and after 8 years fall off our list altogether. Iceland has not played a qualifying full field match for over 4 years and so are regarded as dormant, they must play by 07/08/2018 to stay on the list. Spain fell off the list based on this criteria in 2013 and Samoa in 2016. Iceland (dormant) need to play by 07/08/2018 to stay on the list.



   For a full discussion of the eligibility criteria of games see World Rankings - Criteria

   For a full list of the included matches, see Men's World Rankings - Matches

   For a full discussion of how the rankings are produced, see World Rankings - Method

   For previous rankings see Men's World Rankings - Historical



Last Updated: Monday, November 13 2017 @ 05:57 pm ACDT| Hits: 94,034 View Printable Version