World Cup Expansion to 40 no, 48 teams

They're getting six places in the World Cup come 2026.

The next South American team in, from the last qualifiers, to bring the 5 up to 6, would be Chile, reigning Copa America champions. They finished sixth in the CONCACAF qualifying group.

The next two European teams in, from the last qualifiers, to bring the 14 up to 16, would be four times World Champions Italy... and Northern Ireland. That's counting the sides who lost their playoffs most narrowly.

Sure, and that is a fair point. But I get the impression that Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay are cyclical, and are not consistent like Brazil and Argentina in producing the type of player that can consistently dominate World Football. The likes of Ecuador and Peru are generally weak, and probably wouldnt last the pace in Europe, and the likes of Bolivia and Venezuela certainly wouldnt. I think South American performance in a European setup would depend heavily on how good the Chile's and Colombia's of the World would be at the time.

They currently have 13/32 which is approx 40%

They should have demanded 40% of the increase.

Okay SA have strong teams but the others sections are much weaker than some of the European teams sitting at home.

Oh they have a proposed match schedule. Only six of the sixteen groups are all in the US.

However, of the 45 teams who aren't the US, Canada and Mexico, 22 will have group games solely in the US, and 1 will have games solely in Mexico.

You'd have to hope to be among those teams.

I'd agree. There is very little room to underperform, and apart from Brazil, most countries, including Argentina have had anxious waits to make sure they attended previous tournaments.

True but Europe have the most teams already for a very good reason. They have basically given away 3 places.

One of those could be Ireland SD. You need to be angry about this.