Women's World Cup: Five European governments want quick agreement on TV rights

The sports ministers of 5 European countries person urged broadcasters and Fifa to "quickly scope an agreement" connected Women's World Cup TV rights, with lone 50 days until the tourney begins.

The UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy said it was their work to "fully mobilise each stakeholders".

The World Cup, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, starts connected 20 July.

In a associated statement, the 5 countries "acknowledged with concern" that an statement was not successful place, but said they are "confident" Fifa and broadcasters' volition "find a communal path".

The connection was signed by the curate liable for athletics successful those countries, including UK Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer.

This period Infantino threatened not to broadcast the lawsuit successful the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, describing their "disappointing" TV rights offers arsenic a "slap successful the face" of the players and "all women worldwide".

He said European broadcasters had offered satellite football's governing assemblage $1m-$10m (£800,000-£8m) for the rights, compared with $100m-$200m for the men's World Cup.

Rights offers for erstwhile tournaments were bundled unneurotic with different events, including the men's World Cup, but Fifa has present separated the bidding process.

Infantino said 2 weeks agone that discussions were "moving".

Former Fifa Council subordinate Moya Dodd has criticised Infantino's stance, saying Fifa has historically undervalued the women's crippled and it saying it was "a spot affluent to scold broadcasters for underpaying".

The BBC held the sole broadcast rights successful the UK for the 2019 Women's World Cup but shared the rights for the caller men's World Cup successful Qatar with ITV.

It has widely been reported that the BBC and ITV volition stock broadcasting rights for this summer's tournament, though nary announcement has been made.

A BBC Sport spokesperson said it did not remark connected sports rights negotiations.

Last twelvemonth the Women's World Cup and European Championship were added to the 'crown jewels' of British sporting events, which necessitate free-to-air coverage.

Infantino said Fifa has trebled the full prize wealth to $152m (£123m) compared with the 2019 Women's World Cup successful France and reiterated its tendency to person adjacent wage for the men's and women's World Cups by 2026 and 2027, archetypal announced astatine its annual legislature successful March.

According to Fifa's data, 1.12 cardinal radical watched the 2019 Women's World Cup successful France, a grounds for a women's tournament.

Almost fractional of full viewing hours were from Europe, with the mean viewing clip of 4.14 hours per idiosyncratic crossed the full tourney much than treble the mean of the remainder of the world.

That could beryllium partially attributed to the favourable clip portion and that 7 of the 8 quarter-finalists were European, with England reaching the semi-finals earlier losing to eventual winners the United States.

Kick-off times for the 2023 World Cup are little favourable, ranging from 01:00 to 12:00 BST, though England's 3 radical games commencement betwixt 09:30 and 12:00 and the last is scheduled to footwear disconnected astatine 11:00.

A record planetary audience of 365 cardinal watched past summer's Euro 2022 successful England, with 50 cardinal tuning successful for England's triumph implicit Germany successful the Wembley final.

Research from the Women's Sport Trust (WST) revealed that the magnitude of clip the mean UK spectator spent watching women's athletics successful 2022 was more than treble the 2021 figure.