No I don't think so because when you talk about football it depends on the country's priority if they are interested in investing in football or not there are lot of poor countries even in Europe that are doing well in sports because they have given priority to sports.
I agree with you. Latin american countries are poor and still manage to deliver skilled soccer players to their national teams and clubs around the world, including the european ones. It means soccer is a priority for citizens from those countries since a very early age. They play soccer in a daily basis on the streets and at the schools.
Gym discipline, for an example, summarizes 100% in soccer matches at many elementary and high schools in Brazil. At same time, you have wealthy asian countries like Japan, which despite its efforts, has never achieved a remarkable global soccer title.
I'm sorry but I'm totally lost: in the last 2 posts I read that China have made significant improvements and Japan, despite their efforts, never achieved anything? China never achieved anything in football; Japan since they hosted the World Cup in 2002 kept improving and improving, now many teams in Europe have Japanese players when 20 years ago almost everyone was playing in Japan with a few exceptions like Nakata, Ono, and Inamoto. Japan also won the Asian Cup 4 times and constantly qualified for the World Cup so the progress they mad in the last 20+ years is quite notable. So, again, I don't understand what you guys are saying.