Rank and file, in both football & biz

Fifa's football rankings serve both teams and World Cup. They set out objective qualification benchmarks, are used to ensure the league stage is fair, and can be used to forecast how competitive a match will be. Rankings are designed to ensure that teams are rewarded for sustained performance, rather than individual exploits. They also allow comparison between sides that have never played each other directly. Yet, like all predictive models, Fifa's rankings are not perfect. These rankings drift over time as teams make their way in and out of contests. They also act as a disincentive for highly ranked teams to play lower-ranked opponents because an upset could lead to a disproportionate drop in their standings.

For all their limitations, Fifa's rankings attach an economic marker to football that ensures teams are assured of a certain revenue if they maintain their position. This lowers the risk of unpredictable outcomes by aligning effort with reward. It helps top-rated teams acquire greater influence over the sport. There is, therefore, more than enough incentive to game the system. Typically, this involves strategic scheduling to avoid strong opponents, manipulating the margin of victory to inflate metrics, or intentional losses to secure better future brackets.

World Cup is a contest where every team puts in effort - irrespective of ranking - to win. The probability of winning is determined by a team's share of the total effort expended by all teams. This leads to the unfortunate outcome that teams spend resources equal to the value of the prize. This is the 'Tullock paradox', after Gordon Tullock whose work in game theory showed how sporting contests can be a social waste because resources spent on winning could have been better used elsewhere. A perfect ranking of teams would indicate which one is likely to expend the greatest effort. That would make the results predictable and take away the (non-economic) reason for World Cup-watching. Much like Big Business that is bereft of 'disruptive' spirits for economic pleasure.