The International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) announced via its website www.FIFA.com that Belize has gained a total of 32 points and now ranks #132 in the entire world. Belize has also gained ground regionally and now ranks 20th in the region. The improvement in the country’s FIFA rankings is a direct result of Belize’s performance in the Central American Cup (UNCAF) in January of 2013.
Belize’s ranking leapt from 164 to 132, and for the President of the Football Federation of Belize (FFB) Ruperto Vicente, it serves as motivation. “It means a lot. We were expecting that our ranking would improve based on the performance of the national team in Costa Rica and the fact that we are working hard to improve football in Belize. The improvement in ranking is an indication of hard work that the federation is doing with the national team and football in this country,” said Vicente. He further explained that the improvement in ranking at the UNCAF level directly allowed for FIFA to improve its ranking.
“It is more than a boost. It is a motivation for us to continue the hard work that we are doing. It pays off in every aspect of sports in Belize. It pays off in terms of the morale of our people. It has improved the relationship that football is having with the population and it has motivated others that had walked away from the sports to come back to football. It is a big, big boost for the morale of football in Belize,” said a very confident Vicente.
Vicente said that the Football Federation of Belize is gearing up to start working with the Belize National Team as they prepare for the Gold Cup scheduled to take place in the United States in June of 2013. While there is no date set as yet, Vicente hopes that by the 19 of April, at the CONCACAF general congress, the date, venue and scheduled will be announced. To keep the momentum of the team going, in March the team will be called into camp to start their intense training in preparation for the Gold Cup 2013.
Belize is classified as the third best country for this year to move up in ranking. In CONCACAF ranking of 35 countries, Belize ranked 20th with Mexico being the best while Turks and Caicos Islands the worst in the region.
