Korean football ranks No. 1 in AFC despite poor FIFA ranking

Korean football ranked No.1 at the Asian Football Confederation.

According to the AFC Member Association ranking recently notified to the Korea Football Association, Korea ranked No. 1 in Asia with score 95,212. Saudi Arabia ranked second (87,832), followed by Iran (83,159) and Japan (78,655).

AFC has been announcing rankings based on the past four-year performance of national football teams (30 percent) and AFC-hosted club competitions. The rankings were made to allocate tickets for qualified teams for the AFC Champions League.

Korea is placed at 56th at FIFA rankings, lagging behind Japan (45th), Iran (49th) and Uzbekistan (52nd), but excelled in AFC ranking. This owes to Korea`s professional teams going to the finals for the fifth straight year in the AFC Champions League. Pohang Steelers won in 2009, Seongnam Ilhwa in 2010 and Ulsan Hyundai in 2012. Jeonbuk Hyundai Motor grabbed the second place in 2011 and FC Seoul in 2013.

AFC Champions League has allocated to up to four tickets for each member country until this year but will be cut to 3.5 for next year. AFC calculates the ranking scores in November. If Korea ranks first in November it will obtain 3.5 tickets for 2015 AFC Champions League. For 2014 AFC Champions League, Pohang Steelers and FC Seoul will play for the round of eight on August 20 and 27, respectively.