Despite being inactive for more than two years the Lady Jaguars, Guyana’s principal women’s football team is now ranked of 88th by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA).
This was confirmed by the recently published April Women’s ranking list by the world governing body, which was the first issued international standings of the year for the female section.
The Lady Jaguars sits on 1244 points. They are sandwiched between 87th placed Senegal and 89th positioned Cuba. The team was initially removed from the FIFA rankings due to their inactivity on the international football circuit.
According to the world governing body, national teams are relegated to the status of unranked or inherit a non-ranked standing, if they fail to feature in several competitive matches or have not competed and are inactive for the duration of 18 months.
FIFA elaborated, “Teams not having played more than five matches against officially ranked teams and/or inactive for more than 18 months and therefore do not appear on the table.”
The Lady Jaguars previous fixture occurred against Barbados on May 28th 2018 at the National Track and Field Center, Leonora during the CONCACAF Women’s Qualifiers. Prior to their unranked listing, the Lady Jaguars were positioned on 88th, which is their current placement. However, the aforesaid non-ranking rule has been amended as an unranked status is only acquired following 48 months or four years of inactivity, as well as no matches held against ranked opposition.
The Lady Jaguars highest ever ranking was 76th and occurred in March 2017. Their worst ever placement on the world ladder was 92nd and occurred in December 2015. FIFA World Cup champion and CONCACAF giant, the United States of America, maintain their position atop the rankings.
The lowest ranked team is Mauritius on 167th. The FIFA Women’s Rankings was introduced in 2003, with the first table published July 16th. The next scheduled release of the rankings is yet to be confirmed by FIFA.
Although inactive, the Lady Jaguars have remained in the public eye after dispatching a letter on Wednesday April 7th, to the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson Jr, to highlight the unequal allocation of resources by the local governing entity, the Guyana Football Federation to the programme. This is inclusive of non-payment of match fees for international fixtures.
According to the correspondence which was also sent to First Lady Arya Ali, “We are writing to express our frustrations around the unfair and inequitable distribution of resources and support provided to the female participants in comparison to our male counterparts. We feel the impact of years of systemic bias. We have been relegated to second-class citizens because of our gender even though our records and accomplishments are amongst the best across the Caribbean region.”
