Teams accumulate rating points and never lose them. Every game awards points to both sides, the winner gets multipliers for opponent quality, playing away and margin of victory, and later tournament rounds are worth more. To stop the totals growing forever, every team’s points are cut by 33 percent before each major event.
| Factor | What it does |
|---|---|
| Base factor | Set at 10, keeps totals on a familiar scale |
| Competition stage | Later rounds are worth more than group games |
| Winning factor | 1.40 in round robin events, ensuring winners outscore losers |
| Opponent rating | Beating a stronger team is worth more |
| Away factor | Winning on the road earns a bonus |
| Margin of victory | Bigger wins earn more, with limits |
| Region strength | 1.00 for multi region events like the World Cup and Olympics |
| Discount | 33 percent cut before every major event |
Accumulative, Not Averaged
The old model split 1,000 points between the winner and loser of each game and folded the result into an average rating. That was replaced by an accumulative system. Teams now add points to a running total, and crucially they never lose points for a defeat. Both sides collect base points for showing up; the winner collects extra on top.
The practical effect is that playing more games helps you. A federation that competes regularly accrues points a less active one cannot.
Why the 33 Percent Haircut Exists
If points only ever go up, totals would inflate indefinitely. So before each World Cup, Olympic tournament and continental championship, every team’s total is discounted by 33 percent. Because the same factor applies to everyone, the order of the rankings does not change at all. It simply keeps the numbers in a sensible range and stops results from a decade ago dominating.
Region Factors, and Why They Are Recalculated
Games between teams from different regions, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, carry a region factor of 1.00. Regional competitions carry their own weights, computed from how teams from Africa, the Americas, Asia including Oceania, and Europe have actually performed in global events.
Those weights are recalibrated every four years using the most recent results, so a region that improves on the world stage sees its domestic competitions valued more highly next cycle.
Men and Women Use Slightly Different Numbers
The structure is shared but the constants are not identical. The women’s system uses a winning factor of 1.40 for round robin competitions, where the men’s system uses 1.25 across the board. The women’s model also adds a region structure factor to compensate for continental championships that involve fewer games than others.
The Bottom Line
Earn points every game, never lose them, earn more for beating good teams away from home by a wide margin deep in a tournament, and take a 33 percent trim before every major event.