Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone, IBSA Goalball are pleased to present the final Goalball Ranking lists for 2016.

This month, the top ten men's teams stayed exactly the same as the previous month, Brazil, Lithuania, China, Turkey, USA, Ukraine, Sweden, Finland, Iran and Slovenia.  Further down the list, Australia climbed from 39th to 34th.  Teams from Central America and Africa suffered as tournaments that helped them climb lost points as they got older.  Those most affected were Nicaragua (25-36), Guatemala (30-41), Panama (36-46), Rwanda (46-56) and Ghana (49-57).

There was only a small change to the women's top 10.  the teams were essentially the same except that Thailand slipped from 10th to 21st.  The almost new top ten is now Brazil, China, Turkey, USA, Japan, Russia, Canada, Israel, Germany and Australia.  Central; American women's team suffered a similar fate to their male colleagues with teams losing ground due to aging tournaments.  Those affected were Honduras (27-32) and Panama (29-35).  Nicaragua bucked the trend moving up from 22nd to 16th.

Next month we will try some new ideas that have come directly from our players.  They suggested that the rankings are only based on our major and regional tournaments.  We will also publish ranking lists for men's and women's teams by region.  It should be fun to see how things end up.

We will also continue to publish the official rankings as they are now on this website so keep an eye out for further updates next month.