In comments made in the same week an independent expert told insidethegames that the global television audience for Brazil 2014 was "up slightly" on South Africa 2010, Ericson said FIFA was "getting confirmation that in many of the main markets we have absolute records".

One of these seems sure to be the United States, where Ericson indicated that FIFA had seen numbers matching National Football League playoff games and also World Series baseball numbers.

"We are breaking through in one of the markets where we are not the number one sport," he asserted.

FIFA has already disclosed that the match between the US and Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal was the "most watched football match ever on US TV".

It said that ESPN and Univisión had achieved a combined audience of 24.7 million.

It said this was "higher than any of National Basketball Association finals" and "higher than average of 2013 World Series".

FIFA said the United States' World Cup match in Brazil against Portugal was the most watched football game in American history ©AFP/Getty Images

With in-home viewer reach in the US put at 94.5 million for the 2010 tournament, it now seems highly likely that this measure will have exceeded 100 million for Brazil 2014.

The audience reach of the World Cup in the US had already climbed by close to one-fifth between 2006 and 2010.

Ericson recently told insidethegames that Brazil 2014 had achieved "very, very good figures across the Americas and Europe".

In Asia, where the time-zone was not generally conducive to high ratings, he said FIFA was "encouraged by what we saw".