Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine whether football can be considered an indicatorof development at the international level. An empirical econometric model is designed inorder to analyse development in terms of both levels of GDP per capita and GDP growth.Cross-sectional and time series information is used. The results suggest that FIFA rankings of national teams can be used to complement our understanding of multidimensionaldevelopment in those countries where the availability of information is not as good asresearchers would like.