FIFA world cup.. where are we..??

Someone has truly said that if cricket world cup is of the size of an elephant.. then its football counterpart is like a big blue whale!
Its not a biased comparison, if we look at the number of teams participating in the two events, or more importantly the nations playing it as a regular sport, we can easily come to the same conclusion.
If there are 10 major cricketing nations, along with a handful more who have a few amateur cricketers playing for them occasionally, there are more than 132 in football, atleast the ones who are ranked above India by FIFA!
If we dig into the history of the Indian football team, we find surprising results.
The official Indian football team was formed in 1948 and since then, it is affiliated to FIFA. India got a chance for a direct entry into the 1950 world cup finals, but as we say in India that even our lives are decided by the politicians, the then sports ministry decided to go against the opportunity quoting that there wasn't enough practice time along with selection process, inspite of the fact that FIFA had agreed to bear a major part of the Indian team's travelling expenses.
Just to cover up their inefficiency, the government came up with a unique blame game, blaming the then captain Shailan Manna and his team that they didn't participate in the world cup because they wanted to play barefoot, which was not accepted by FIFA!!
Shame on these politicians...!!
That was India's only chance till date to participate in the largest world event. Since then, India has never even been close to qualify for the finals of the football world cup.

A major reason for the game's plight in our country is unavailability of infrastructure for the game.In a country of a thousand million people, is it so difficult to find 11 men who can be coached to match the skills of the best football players in the world?
This question remains to be answered by the politicians and all the men behind football in India.
It is also a long standing belief in our country that football has not been able to prosper in our country due to the menacing growth of cricket. Well, to some extent is is true. To a youngster choosing sports as his career, cricket is always more elusive given the huge gains in the sports. A cricketer playing for India is paid handsomely, in range of a few lakhs per match he plays, along with a yearly contract, leave aside the wealthy endorsements they get adding to their celebrity status.
On the contrary, a football player gets a petty match fee of a few thousand rupees and a slim contract money. These players hardly get any endorsements and talking about celebrity status, most Indians won't be able to name all the players of the Indian football team!!
If we compare India's most successful football player, Bhaichung Bhutia (who has 102 caps and 42 goals to his credit) to the most successful football players in the world like Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney or Kaka, we would come to know of the status of football in India.
However some consolations for India are the recent wins in Nehru Cup and other Asian tournaments, however a Football world cup BERTH, still alludes the nation!