{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,13]],"date-time":"2026-01-13T04:37:13Z","timestamp":1768279033872,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,3]],"date-time":"2022-03-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1646265600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Games"],"abstract":"<jats:p>I investigate the paradoxes associated with the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) point-based ranking of national soccer teams. The ranking has been plagued with paradoxes that incentivize teams to avoid playing friendly matches, i.e., matches that are not part of any official FIFA tournament or preliminaries, and applying other counterintuitive strategies. The most spectacular paradox was the dramatic underrating of the hosts of major tournaments. For a long time, host teams, which were absent from preliminary matches, would play only friendly matches that awarded few points. Here, I present three models that estimate the magnitude of the resulting \u201chost effect\u201d at 14.2\u201316 positions. Such an estimate counteracts the intuition that a large investment in hosting a tournament should result in an improvement in the host team\u2019s standing. However, as discussed here, a given host\u2019s low ranking could decrease interest in the tournament, and likely result in a major loss of advertisement revenue.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/g13020022","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,3]],"date-time":"2022-03-03T09:24:53Z","timestamp":1646299493000},"page":"22","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["How Strong Are Soccer Teams? The \u201cHost Paradox\u201d and Other Counterintuitive Properties of FIFA\u2019s Former Ranking System"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3997-0541","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marek M.","family":"Kaminski","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Political Science and Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Social Science Plaza, Irvine, CA 92697, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"FIFA (2018, July 01). Frequently Asked Questions about the FIFA\/Coca-Cola World Ranking. Available online: http:\/\/www.fifa.com\/mm\/document\/fifafacts\/r&a-wr\/52\/00\/95\/fs-590_05e_wr-qa.pdf."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Wang, C., and Vandebroek, M.L. (2018, July 01). A Model Based Ranking System for Soccer Teams. KU Leuven Working Paper. 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