FIFA approves 48 teams World Cup formula.

[Basil II the B.S]

Commercialization ruined it.

And yes, more teams is the result of that as well. More teams means more games, meaning more tv contracts meaning more advertising.
Even the value of a player now doesn't depend anymore on how good he actually is but on how many t-shirts he sells.

[Macunaíma]

Looking forward to exciting matches such as Trinidad and Tobago vs Montenegro. Seriously, the 48 teams format was already bad, but this slot distribution is ridiculous.

[Gallus]

Asia, Africa and Concacaf with combined 23 slots. I can't wait for the Iran - Canada game.

[Basil II the B.S]

-6 concacaf: Now we all know which ones are the respectable teams, they are 3. But hey, looks like Canada will be back in the world cup after decades, despite no improvement whatsoever. Just dumb.
-8 in Asia: let's be clear, I'm fine with this one. I'd have started with 6 though, not 8 straight away. Japan/S.Korea are respectable. China is going to be decent soon enough. I think all 8 will be better than the bottom 3 of Concacaf.
-9 Africa: I'm fine with this one too. The Mediterranean ones will basically qualify for sure (Morocco/Egypt/Algeria/Tunisia) depending on the generation they can put on decent teams. Algeria did well in the last world cup. Ghana is safe as well. The remaining 4 I'm assuming Cameroun, South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, all of which are in deep crisis partly due to the fact many of their best players end up playing for European countries due to dual nationality.

One of the biggest problems, it'll be really hard to reform it back to a better formula, because none of the above will accept to lose the spots they gained.

[Gallus]

I can accept 9 from Africa, but 8 from Asia is too much. Japan and S. Korea have decent teams. After that there's nothing. The 6 remaining spots will be filled with teams like China, N. Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Uzbekistan.

[lolIsuck]

Iran has some decent footballers, Australia is ok I guess and the Gulf States will certainly have bought enough Brazilians and Africans to field a somewhat competitive team.

[Macunaíma]

Certainly the most absurd of those is Asia getting 8 slots, but almost all the other allocations make no sense (in making the Cup better, that is). Europe didn't need any more slots, and Concacaf getting the same number as Conmebol is tragic. In such dumb formula South America should get at least 8 slots, it would make more sense technically-wise (who cares if the qualifiers would be less competitive). I'm fine with Africa getting 9, though. They surely deserve more slots than Asia, and if we're gonna go with that stupid distribution, at least they got this right.

[Basil II the B.S]

Asia is more a prospective one than actual one. Again, this formula won't be used immediately so they expect Asian teams to improve in the next few years (I'd sort of agree with that one, but I still don't see anyone achieving the level of Japan/S.Korea by then). Concacaf is plain laughable. Africa sort of meh. I'd have gone with 6-7.

[Treva ★]

So only two World Cups remain with a relatively sane format and that's because they've already been democratically awarded to Russia (!) and Qatar (!!).