Judge it when it's all over, they said eagerly. It was day two of the inaugural World Club Championship and the remarkable hostility generated toward the tournament even before day one had dawned was re-surfacing outside a crumbling Maracana stadium in Rio. Fresh paint and fresh cement were being applied to the 50-year-old ground and fresh disapproval to the competition.

The previous evening, in Sao Paulo, a miserly crowd, described by FIFA officials "unofficially" as 25,000 - but said to be closer to 2,000 by neutral observers - had turned up to see Real Madrid meet the Saudi Arabians AlNassr, and the twin images of empty seats in the Morumbi stadium and rows of plastic ones waiting to be installed in the Maracana were threatening to overwhelm FIFA.

So the message from above was sent down: judge it when it's over, get some perspective. The implication was that instant assessments are untrustworthy. This is wrong: on-the-spot analysis merely offers a different judgment, not an incorrect one. But FIFA's fretting officials had a point, one they were keen to develop. A lot of it concerned perspective.

Of course, trying to understand other people's is a chore a lot of us choose not to face most days, but when FIFA pleaded with cynical Europeans to make an effort to view this far-from-complete experiment through the eyes of Asians, Australians and South Americans, it seemed a reasonable request. Being in the driving seat of football's first world economy, it was the least we could do.

So we listened - to Sepp Blatter talking about the good of the game when really he meant the good of FIFA, to the persuasive tones of the articulate Australians from South Melbourne, and to Alex Ferguson sounding like an innovator with a 21st century vision. Or hoping he did.

There were moments when all made scoring jabs. Blatter's obvious desire to see South Africa host the 2006 World Cup must be of huge solace to the growing numbers of players and supporters in that country and on that continent. The bidding for 2006 was the unsubtle political subtext in Brazil - after all, Manchester United's presence was a by-product of it - and Blatter's support for Africa has to be seen in the context of relentless corporate pressure from Europe's two challengers, England and Germany.

Blatter's quest to be seen as football's evangelist has problems of transparency, but when the Melbourne coach, Ange Postecoglu, discussed how this tournament could help the game in Australia flourish in the harsh climate afforded by the popularity of cricket, rugby and Aussie Rules, it became clear the publicity and $2.5 million prize money Melbourne earned is needed if converts are to be won.

John Anastasiadis, one of Postecoglu's players and a scorer in the Maracana against Necaxa, was derided in one tabloid as a "petrol pump attendant". This ignored the fact that Anastasiadis spent 10 years as a professional in Greece with Salonika, and omitted that this was as wise a talker about the game as any of those from the supposed superior nations.

Unsurprisingly, Anastasiadis loved the tournament, yet that did not prevent him stepping back and looking at it as a whole entity. He had two criticisms: one, that if FIFA genuinely wanted to spread its gospel, then this competition must be held where the sport requires nourishing; two, "the fans make the game. We can talk about it all day, but it's the people who make it. Walking out into an empty stadium, the silence really hits you."

And where were the fans? Are Brazilians simply too sectarian to acknowledge the worth of the cubs of other countries, or is there another explanation - cost, projection, timing?

Whatever, but a legitimate fear is that vacant seats in Brazil matter less than healthy viewing figures in BBC HQ. Tellingly, Blatter said: "In England more than 11 million households watched Manchester United v Necaxa, which was wonderful. In Mexico, the audience was even bigger." Again the broader perspective, but again the focus on television.

How many will have tuned in for Friday night's anti-climax will be of interest. Certainly, arriving back in England from the frenzy of Rio on Friday offered helpful distance. Turning on BBC Radio 5 Live to hear team news from Brazil, the first headline was about cricket - "Donald Out With Gout" - the second was about golf and the third concerned Tony Pulis' move from Bristol City to manage Portsmouth.

In a way that was pleasingly parochial, but reaffirmed that the game's chief battleground today is global v local. In March, FIFA will announce their findings on Rio and the venue for the next World Club Championship. Unconvincing it may have been, but it seems here to stay.

FA Cup 0, Planet Football 1.