Ghana slipped three places down on the latest FIFA ranking released for April on Thursday but moved up one place in Africa to occupy the fourth position on the continent.

The Black Stars are now ranked the 38th best team in the world after moving up two places for the March edition.

But the 2014 World Cup finalists moved one place up on the Africa ranking to fourth place.

Ivory Coast remain the highest ranked African country and 21st in the world.

The Elephants are followed by Egypt (24th) and Algeria (25th).

Europe occupies the top three places after Portugal climbed third behind leaders Spain and Germany.

They are followed by four South American sides in Colombia (4th, up 1), Uruguay (5th, up 1) and fierce rivals Argentina (down 3) and Brazil (up 3), who share sixth position.

Only six matches were played over the past month.

The majority of changes can be attributed to the devaluation of matches from previous years, most of which were FIFA World Cup qualifiers and now have a greatly reduced weighting.