In fact, the previous world champions were only European national teams and Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina from South America.
The fact is that African and Asian football has progressed significantly in recent years, which can be seen in the examples of the success of South Korea in 2002 and Morocco last year, but the best football is still played in Europe and South America.
In recent years, very good football players have come from Africa, such as Salah and Mane, but the African national teams are not yet at the level of the best national teams in the world.
Therefore, the inclusion of additional teams from Asia, Africa and North America will definitely reduce the quality of the world cup.
On this point I disagree with most of you hehehe.
Soccer in Africa and Asia has evolved a lot.
I don't know how old you are, but a few years ago Asian teams were easily defeated by almost any team from South America and Europe, and African teams were known for having a lot of disposition but lacked a bit of technique and experience.
If you want I can give examples, but I will try not to make the post too long.
Nowadays, playing against the teams from Japan, South Korea, Ghana, Morocco, and Senegal, for example, is no guarantee of victory; they are very difficult teams to beat. Just take a look at the last World Cup, when Japan qualified 1st in its group, better than Spain and Germany. South Korea was ahead of Uruguay. Morocco was first in its group, ahead of Croatia and Belgium.
Nowadays soccer has become very mixed, so the players of one national team play in many different countries, play in European leagues, the coaches are also foreigners, and soccer is more leveled than it was a few years ago. If you look closely, even the style of play is very similar, unlike in the past where teams played completely different from each other.
The spots for the continents outside the Europe-America axis I think are fair, and with this opportunity soccer in these other countries can develop.
If no opportunity is given and these countries are stuck on the continent, they may never achieve anything, but with the experience they will have in 2026, it could help a lot.
The 2026 World Cup can bring even more surprises than what happened in 2022 with Morocco.