Rwanda drops further on Fifa ladder

AT the moment, there is very little to say about local football. Rwanda has paid the price for her wobbly start to the 2012 Africa Nations Cup qualifying campaign by dropping further in the latest Fifa/Coca Cola rankings. Following identical 3-0 defeats against Ivory Coast and Benin in Group H, Rwanda has dropped six places from 112th to 118th. While many heap the blame on Amavubi head coach Sellas Tetteh, the Ghanaian insists that it concerns all stakeholders of the game. “It is clear for everyone to see that there is a lot of work to be done. Let’s stop shifting blame and get down to business,” Tetteh said. Reigning Cecafa champions Uganda are the highest ranked nation in the region-63rd in the world and 12th in Africa. Sudan has climbed eight places to 93rd in the world.Kenya is three slots (115) ahead of Rwanda while Tanzania is 119th after dropping nine places. Although Egypt kept their place at the helm of the continent, they slipped out of Fifa’s top ten. Group H leaders Ivory Coast are 19th in the world and third in Africa, Benin is 68th in the world and 14th in Africa while Burundi dropped 14 places to 136 in the world and 37th in Africa. Still in Africa, Libya (81st, up 26) and Niger (100th, up 54) made incredible climbs of at least 20 places over the last month. The Central African Republic (112th) also jumped 60 places after emerging from a three-and-a-half-year absence that had seen them rooted to the foot of the ranking with no points to their name just two months ago. Spain and the Netherlands remained in the top two spots respectively, while Brazil (3rd, up 1) and Germany (4th, down 1) traded places inside the top five. Argentina, England, Uruguay and Portugal round out the rest of the top 10 respectively, but the biggest move inside the top 50 this month belongs to Guinea (47th, up 34).The United States (25th, down 7) remains the highest ranked team in CONCACAF, but holds just a slight edge over Mexico, which stayed in the same spot in 28th. A total of 156 international matches, 80 continental qualifiers and 76 friendly matches were taken into account for the October edition of the world ranking, which brings the total number of matches evaluated in 2010 to 641. World 1. Spain2. Netherlands3. Brazil4. Germany5. Argentina Africa 1. Egypt (11)2. Ghana (17)3. Ivory Coast (19)4. Algeria (33)5. Nigeria (34) Cecafa 1. Uganda (63)2. Sudan (93)3. Kenya (115)4. Rwanda (118)5. Tanzania (120) Ends

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Rwanda drops further on Fifa ladder