Fair Play? FIFA Has Been Fooling Us For Decades

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to be held in Brazil. I think the format is flawed.

It currently favours teams in Europe and South America, just because they did well at previous World Cups. I think that's unfair. I also think that several rounds of qualification are very unfair, especially considering that South American countries only have to go through one stage of qualifying.

Here's how I would reform the qualification process for 2014.

AFC: 46 teams (21.4%)        6.8 (7 SPOTS) (7/32)       
CAF: 55 teams (25.6%)        8.2 (8 SPOTS) (15/32)
CONCACAF: 40 teams (18.6%)    6.0 (6 SPOTS) (21/32)
UEFA: 53 teams (24.6%)        7.9 (8 SPOTS) (29/32)
CONMEBOL: 10 teams (4.7%)    1.5 (1.5 SPOTS) (30.5/32)
OFC: 11 teams (5.1%)        1.6 (1.5 SPOTS) (32/32)

TOTAL 215 FIFA MEMBERS

AFC Qualifying Tournament: (7 spots, 46 teams)
Four groups of 7; three groups of 6.
Groups of seven play each other member home and away (12).
Groups of six play each opponent home and away, and one opponent twice more (12).
Group winners qualify for WC.

CAF Qualifying Tournament: (8 spots, 55 teams)
Seven groups of 7; one group of six.
See AFC tournament.
Group winners qualify for WC.

CONCACAF: (6 spots, 40 teams)
Six groups: Four of seven, two of six.
See AFC tournament.
Group winners qualify for WC.

UEFA: (8 spots, 53 teams)
Eight groups: Three of 7, four of 8.
Groups of 8 play four opponents once, one twice, and two thrice.
Groups of seven play each other member home and away (12).
Group winners qualify for WC.

CONMEBOL: (1.5 spots, 10 teams)
One group, all teams.
Each team plays eight opponents once, and one four times (12).
The group winner qualifies for WC.
The group runner-up plays the OFC runner-up for the final berth.

OFC: (1.5 spots, 11 teams)
Two groups; one of 5, one of 6.
Group of 5 has all teams play each team three times. (12)
Group of 6 has each team play 4 twice, and one opponent 4 times. (12)
The best team in both groups gets the automatic berth to the WC.
The best team in the other group plays the CONMEBOL runner-up for the final berth.

Under this format, all national teams play 12 qualifying matches. Just 12 games to prove you are  deserving of a shot at the big time. Hmm, seems vaguely like Bowl Division NCAA football.

The selection of which teams go in which groups in qualification will be completely randomized, based on a lottery drawing of numbered balls.

Further to this, for equal distribution in the opening round of the World Cup:
The eight qualifiers from UEFA will be placed one each in groups A to H.
The eight qualifiers from CAF will also be placed one each in groups A to H.
The seven qualifiers from AFC will fill the third spots in Groups A through G.
The remaining nine spots will then be filled in a lottery-style format, as was used to determine members in the original qualification round. 

One thing to note; if only one UEFA team is in each of the eight groups, that may allow those teams an easy breeze into the next round. From their standpoint, doesn't that still allow the so-called “best” teams a good shot at the title?