The FT GlobalMBA ranking and theEnglish football Premier League have one thing in common. Pundits may argue about who will head the table, but most years there is little doubt about the top ?ve.

So it is for 2014: HarvardBusiness Schoolfended off competitors and kept the crown it regained last year. This is the ?fth time Harvard has topped the rankings since they began in 1999. Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness remained second, while LondonBusiness School leapfrogged theWharton school at theUniversity ofPennsylvania, pushing the latter into fourth place.Columbia Business School and Insead are joint ?fth.

The FTranking is based on two surveys of the business schools and their alumni who graduated in 2010. MBA programmes are assessed according to the career progression of their alumni, the school’s idea generation and the diversity of students and faculty.