Affiliations: [a] Department of Sports Management and Marketing, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia | [b] Director of Educational and Research Centre ``Statistics and mathematics'', Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Elected member of the International Statistical Institute, Moscow, Russia | [c] Center of Strategic Sport Research, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia | [d] Department of Information Technologies, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: A. Vorobyev, Department of Sports Management and Marketing, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Stremyanny per. 36, Moscow, 117997, Russia. Tel.: +7 499 236 13 31; Fax: +7 499 237 87 77; E-mail:anatoliy.vorobiev@gmail.com
Abstract: This article considers the dependence of football results
from the level of socio-economic development. The variables included in this
correlation analysis were the official men's FIFA ranking, as an indicator
of nation's football results, and other globally accepted rating systems
such as the human development, life expectancy, income, and education
indexes, which are all regarded as indicators of socio-economic development.
The authors determined the pair and partial correlation coefficients of the
selected variables, and the statistical significance of the coefficients
were assessed using the Student's t-test and Fisher transformation. Multiple
correlation was used to determine the dependency level between a country's
on-pitch results and its socio-economic development level. The outcomes show
the official FIFA ranking is a poor indicator of a country's level of
football development.
Keywords: FIFA ranking, football development, football performance evaluation, assessment of football development efficiency, socio-economic development indexes, correlation coefficient
