The latest FIFA Women’s ranking sees Australia remain at 15th place ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup which kicks off on 20 September. Australia will represent the OFC at the flagship event for women’s football hosted this time in the USA after the SARS threat in Asia caused the tournament to be shifted there from China earlier in the year.
New Zealand are knocking on the door of the top twenty and are ranked 21st, just one place behind Finland and one ahead of Chinese Taipei. Tonga is the surprisingly the next highest ranked nation in the OFC after being given a provisional ranking of 54. Papua New Guinea, the gold medalists from the recent South Pacific Games are ranked 59. Fiji, Vanuatu, Tahiti and the Cook Islands are all provisionally ranked on 70, 84, 95 and 96 respectively. Samoa dropped five places to 99 after being ranked 94 in the last rankings.
The next FIFA Women’s World Ranking will be released on 24 October 2003.
To see the full rankings, visit the FIFA website on www.fifa.com or click on the FIFA link on the homepage.