They will be hanging out the bunting in Berne today, following the news that Switzerland has been awarded an extra point in the UFWC rankings table. This despite the fact that the Swiss haven't held the UFWC title - or indeed played in a UFWC title match - since 1994. The reason for the award of this extra point? A simple oversight, some say mistake, spotted by UFWC fan Takashi Tanaka from Japan, home of the current Unofficial Football World Champions.
We've posted previously about the difficulties involved in maintaining the UFWC's statistics, being as they are drawn from various sources of varying reliability. This error was simply a case of miscounting the number of title matches Switzerland have won. Teams receive one UFWC ranking point for every title match win. (No points are awarded for draws.) We said that Switzerland had 9 points, but in fact, as Takashi points out, they have in fact won ten title matches:
12/11/1939 SWITZERLAND 3-1 ITALY Zurich FR
20/04/1941 SWITZERLAND 2-1 GERMANY Berne FR
15/11/1942 SWITZERLAND 3-1 SWEDEN Zurich FR
04/04/1943 SWITZERLAND 1-0 CROATIA Zurich FR
25/11/1945 SWITZERLAND 3-0 SWEDEN Geneva FR
03/05/1970 SWITZERLAND 2-1 FRANCE Basel FR
27/10/1982 ITALY 0-1 SWITZERLAND Rome FR
17/11/1982 SWITZERLAND 2-0 SCOTLAND Berne EQ
01/12/1982 GREECE 1-3 SWITZERLAND Athens FR
22/06/1994 ROMANIA 1-4 SWITZERLAND Detroit WC
The extra point doesn't actually change Switzerland's ranking position. They remain in 19th place, but now have a 2-point advantage over equal 20th placed Colombia and Romania:
1 SCOTLAND 86
2 ENGLAND 74
3 ARGENTINA 51
4 NETHERLANDS 49
5 RUSSIA 41
6 BRAZIL 29
7 GERMANY 27
7 ITALY 27
9 SWEDEN 26
10 FRANCE 25
11 HUNGARY 17
11 SPAIN 17
13 URUGUAY 16
14 CZECH REP 15
15 AUSTRIA 12
15 WALES 12
17 CHILE 11
17 GREECE 11
