How strong are soccer teams? The ‘Host paradox’ and other
counterintuitive properties of the FIFA’s ranking
Abstract
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FIFA’s ranking of national soccer teams is plagued with paradoxes. One
surprising paradox is a dramatic underrating of the hosts of main
tournaments. The hosts, who are absent from the preliminaries, for a
long time, play only friendlies that award few points. Three models
estimate the magnitude of the resulting “Host Effect” at 14.1-16.7
positions. Such an estimate goes against the intuition that a large
investment in hosting a tournament should result in improvement of the
host team’s standing. Host’s low ranking decreases the interest in the
tournament and may result in a major loss of advertisement revenue.