Malawi National Football Team, the Flames, have maintained position 126 in the latest Fifa Coca-Cola World Rankings for January 2026. This means the Flames have now maintained the position for three consecutive months since November with 1,134 points. Within Africa, Malawi sits on position 31, underlining the scale of the challenge facing the team as it seeks to climb back into continental relevance.
The lack of movement is largely attributed to limited competitive activity and the absence of high-value results. Fifa in statement said the January ranking have been hugely influenced by the just ended 2025 Morocco Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) which Senegal won after defeating the hosts 1-0 in the final on Sunday. Malawi’s last fixture was a 1-0 victory over Lesotho in an international friendly played in South Africa in November Fifa international window, which failed to generate enough points to trigger a rise.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) operations director Gomezgani Zakazaka in an interview said maintaining the position was better than dropping on the ladder. He said: “Maintaining the position is not that bad considering that we had Afcon where 24 teams participated and a total of 52 matches were played.” Meanwhile, South Africa remains the highest-ranked team in the Cosafa region, placed 60th globally and 11th on the continent. Angola on position 89 and Zambia on 911 are also ahead, both sitting in the top 100, followed by Mozambique on 101, Madagascar on 104 and Comoros on 106.
[paywall]
Zimbabwe (132), Lesotho (143) and Eswatini (159) anchor the southern Africa bloc. At the top of the global standings, Spain continue to lead the world rankings, followed by Argentina and France. England and Brazil complete the top five, with Portugal, Netherlands, Africa representatives Morocco, Belgium and Germany rounding off the world’s top 10.
[/paywall]
