World Rankings 2006
There is currently no official system of World Rankings for Australian Football, most likely because the international game is still mostly amateur and still maturing so there are insufficient matches between the nations to reliably compare them. Even when there are matches, countries are often restricted by the inability of players to always be available for travel.
However, worldfootynews.com has attempted to create an unofficial ranking in 2006. The main caveats and background discussion article are given below the rankings.
worldfootynews.com World Rankings 2006
| 1. | Australia |
| 2. | Papua New Guinea |
| 3. | New Zealand |
| 4. | USA |
| 5. | Ireland |
| 6. | South Africa |
| 7. | Denmark |
| 8. | Great Britain |
| 9. | Canada |
| 10. | Samoa |
| 11. | Japan |
| 12. | Nauru |
| 13. | Sweden |
| 14. | Tonga |
| 15. | Spain |
| 16. | Germany |
| 17. | France |
Caveats
- Final rankings are ordered based on the votes of nine worldfootynews.com staff
- Although every effort has been made to be thorough, rankings are always subjective and ours do not purport to be official
- Nations must be considered likely to have at least 20 or so players available under International Cup rules (this excludes expat-Australians)
- Based on players expected to meet IC05 eligibility criteria and likely to be available, e.g. Irish players in the AFL thus far have not been available for Ireland (else Ireland would clearly be ranked #2), whereas Australia has 1000s of amateur and semi-pro players who would be available for such tournaments as IC08 if Australia was included
- Relies heavily on IC05 results and other internationals, taking into account whether nations sent near full-strength teams to the other tournaments
- Great Britain ranked as a whole primarily as they compete as such at International Cups
Background Discussion