For England fans, last week was all about the traditional World Cup Groundhog Day. Same old story, then? For England maybe. But for the World Cup and Fifa, the competition in Brazil is beginning to look like a turning point where popular discontent at the profligacy with state funds and avarice could have far-reaching consequences.

For me, the most striking image of the tournament so far has been the shot of Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, celebrating one of the Seleção's goals against Croatia during the opening game in São Paulo's Itaquerão stadium. She was not in pride of place halfway up the middle of the stadium, but almost hidden at the back of an executive box. This was because both Rousseff and the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, had decided against making the traditional welcoming speeches during the opening ceremony. Both have repeatedly expressed their conviction that everything about Brazil's mega-sporting event is peachy.

If that were the case, one might have thought they would exploit any opportunity to associate themselves in public with this great success. So why did they behave so coyly? Because they were frightened their words would be drowned out by boos and wolf whistles.

This has become the most politicised World Cup in history and both Dilma, as she is known universally in Brazil, and Blatter understand this. Ten days ago at Fifa's congress in São Paulo, Blatter had a glimpse of things to come with several European federations – the FA first and foremost – offering the most trenchant criticism yet to come from within the affiliates. For the moment, he is able to rely on the other federations around the world to support him. But of course the Europeans are the source of much of Fifa's money and influence. If the most powerful footballing nations begin to pull their support, Fifa could become a hollow entity.

Dilma knows that the earlier Brazil get knocked out of the World Cup, the higher the chances are of demonstrators taking to the streets in a rerun of the mass protests that swept the country during last year's Confederations Cup, the dress rehearsal for the World Cup. The progress of the Brazilian team has become the highest matter of state. There is more riding on the fragility of Neymar's metatarsal than there is on the monthly inflation figures (unpleasant reading though they may be).

In the longer term, Dilma is facing a general election in early October. Just before the demonstrations last year, her approval ratings were in the high 60s and nobody doubted that she would be a shoo-in for a second term this year. Six weeks later, after the protests that rocked the whole country, she reached her lowest approval rate, of 27%.

The election is still Dilma's to lose. But the World Cup is her achilles heel: the £10bn spent on stadiums that will never again host more than about 1,000 spectators; the promised infrastructural improvements that remain unfinished and are already crumbling.

After the huge optimism generated by Brazil's past two presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio da Silva ("Lula"), the mood is turning profoundly sour in the wake of the recession and Dilma's inability to tackle crises in health, education and transport while claiming everything is rosy. Brazilians are finally telling the world: "Yes, we love our football. But we love our schools, hospitals and metro systems more."

Fifa selected Brazil as World Cup host in 2007 and the IOC chose Rio for the 2016 Olympic Games in 2009, decisions greeted with exuberance in Brazil and applause around the world. The "Land of the Future", as described by Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig in 1941, was at last about to enter the present.

The model to which Brazil aspired was Beijing's 2008 Olympics. With remarkable swagger, China presented herself as a beautiful moneyed debutante. Of course, the great advantage that the Chinese government enjoyed was that if the infrastructural preparations looked a little wobbly, it could simply deploy all its dictatorial heft to make sure that the trains would run on time.

At the time Brazil was awarded the World Cup and the Olympics, it was wallowing in funds generated by its immense natural resources in the boom years, when commodity prices were sky-rocketing and everyone wanted a piece of the Brazilian pie. Now, in the teeth of failing public services and egregious corruption at high levels, the World Cup has focused the disillusion of Brazil's growing middle class and an early exit could unleash its anger. Fifa's presence has been a consistent irritant. During the disturbances last year, one of the most popular English-language banners raised by demonstrators read: "Fuck Off Fifa".

According to Fifa, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa earned football's governing body over $3.5bn. The host country, by contrast, earned about $500m from the event, a poor return on the $4.5bn invested in stadiums and other infrastructure. Tumbleweed is now blowing around some of them.

Football fans around the globe are quite simply fed up with Fifa. It demands that countries seeking to hold its tournaments pass event-specific legislation – the Brazilian government conceded a host of conditions with its General World Cup Law in 2012. It insists on endless privileges for its representatives and sponsors, and it has a cabal-like structure that lacks any transparency. The announcement by Sepp Blatter that he intends to stand for a third term has enraged fans and, for the first time, provoked public rumblings of discontent among European member associations.

But their opposition at the Fifa Congress petered out after about five minutes and then it was back to North Korean-style Fifa proceedings, with Blatter's supporters from federations around the world being told they would all be pocketing a $700,000 bonus. The subsequent eulogies for the Swiss president would have made Kim Jong-un blush.

The decision to back Blatter's latest electoral bid came despite the growing revelations of corrupt practices surrounding the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar. His response was the habitual one that his PR advisers appear to suggest: an appeal to all "fair-minded" people to let his internal investigation take its course before arriving at a premature judgment.

Nobody is buying this any more. Blatter's power relies solely on the hierarchical structure of Fifa itself. As a global entity, it has a global image on a par with that of banks and hedge funds. The Brazilian World Cup has simply reinforced this. The Brazilian government's cackhandedness and Fifa's greed have both been exposed in this tournament. Dilma and Blatter may still cling on to power, but in the public mind their images have been tainted beyond repair. And I doubt they'll be putting in much of an appearance at next month's final in the Maracanã stadium.

Misha Glenny's The Battle for Brazil is published this autumn