"It's too much to expect that the World Cup is going to increase support for the game on a sustainable basis. And till that happens marketers are not going to make a bee line for it," adds Varghese.

Football mania remains restricted to three Indian states of West Bengal, Goa and Kerala and the elite class in metros. What's required to give an impetus to the game in India is investment in infrastructure for the game.

"Football has its own merits to become popular and does not depend on the ups and downs of cricket. Football is a fast and combative game. It requires high level of fitness and energy. It is a big craze across the world and in quite big numbers in West Bengal, Kerala and Goa. However, events like the Fifa World Cup bring more people closer with the game. To give a perspective, the football crazy in West Bengal are more than the whole of England. It is already the next big thing after cricket in India. The only thing is to reduce the gap by investing in the infrastructure and popularity of game," says Goel.

Moreover, the World Cup shouldn't be benchmarked with regular football. "A tournament of the scale of the World Cup will always create interest considering its scale. In India, a change that seems to be happening, however, is that football is getting greater impetus with more coaching camps and mini leagues at the school level. While this is currently a metro phenomenon, hopefully these initiatives will be continued with and in dues course football will gather a critical mass of fan following to enable it to be seen as a game worth investing in," adds Iyer.

But this however is going to take a good five years or so and for the time being football will still deliver lower than non-India cricket on an average.