We are talking about the England women’s team, and the tournament starting on Thursday (July 20), the ninth edition of the tournament.

That Sky News should be devoting time to the topic at such a time in the day speaks volumes about the place women’s football has now assumed in our sporting world - albeit that England’s wondrous Euro 2022 victory against Germany at Wembley, the first for a senior English team since the 1966 World Cup triumph at the old Wembley, has been a supercharging factor.

At a time when interest in the women’s game has never been higher or more widespread, the imminent World Cup is already certain to be a pioneering one.

Australia and New Zealand are co-hosting the competition, making it the first edition to be held in the Southern Hemisphere, the first Women's World Cup to be hosted by two countries, and the first FIFA senior competition for either men or women to be held across two Confederations, as Australia is in the Asian Confederation and New Zealand in the Oceanian Confederation.

In addition, this tournament will be the first to feature the expanded format of 32 teams from the previous 24, replicating the same format used for the men's World Cup from 1998 to 2022.

And the United States are set on creating more history in the tournament by annexing what would be their fifth title since winning the inaugural edition in 1991, and their third on the trot.

But as the opening match takes place between New Zealand and Norway at Eden Park in Auckland on Thursday the sense that the women’s international game is heading onwards and upwards will be seriously compromised by a number of aggravating factors.

England, for instance, have arrived Down Under without a resolution to their dispute with the Football Association (FA) over performance-related bonuses.

They are not the only ones, as the Spanish and Jamaican teams are in a similar position.

The European champions are understood to be disappointed that the FA has not offered to pay the players its own bonuses now that FIFA is distributing prize money to players rather than to the Federations, as had previously been the case.

Every player that participates in the tournament will receive £24,000 ($31,400/€28,000) for playing in the group stages, while each of those who leave the tournament victorious will earn £213,000 ($279,000/€248,000) from world football's governing body.

The FA, which has been searching to find a resolution, feels that the players' 300 per cent rise in earnings compared to France 2019 is ample, especially considering this will be the first major tournament it is set to make a loss at with all the logistical costs.

The feeling amongst the players, however, is that if they progress to the latter stages of the competition it will result in boosted commercial revenues for the FA - something they feel should be reflected in their bonuses from the Federation.

Spain, another of the tournament favourites, will be without key players including Barcelona's Champions League final match-winner Patri Guijarro because of a dispute with the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).

A group of 15 players emailed the RFEF in September to declare themselves unavailable for selection as they expressed their discontent under head coach Jorge Vilda.

All but three of them will not make the trip after the RFEF backed Vilda. Which means that Guijarro's Barcelona team-mates Mapi Leon, Claudia Pina and Sandra Panos also miss out.

Speaking to BBC Sport at St George's Park, England defender Lucy Bronze said: "It's sad that they're missing out on something that's a huge moment in any footballer's career to make a difference. But unfortunately, this is women's football still."

Meanwhile, the players of Jamaica have written an open letter voicing their concerns and grievances with the Jamaican Football Federation while preparing for their second World Cup, having gone out in the group stages in 2019.

The letter mentions friendly match opportunities missed through poor planning, unpaid compensation and a lack of adequate funding.

Sandra Brower, mother of midfielder Havana Solaun, has set up a GoFundMe page to help cover travel and tournament costs.

Players from Canada, Nigeria and South Africa have also been voicing their frustrations over conditions and issues around compensation with their Federations.

South Africa even boycotted their send-off game over fears about the quality of the pitch and a dispute over performance-related bonuses, although the latter problem has now been resolved after a charity stepped in with a donation.

The ninth FIFA Women’s World Cup has also been afflicted by the threat of something akin to a publicity power cut, albeit that the service has been belatedly restored by the international governing body.

In May, FIFA President Gianni Infantino branded rights offers to broadcast the event as “a slap in the face for women worldwide” and warned that five leading European football nations could face a television blackout unless offers were improved.

"To be very clear, it is our moral and legal obligation not to undersell the FIFA Women's World Cup," Infantino told a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva.

He revealed that offers for the broadcast rights for the tournament from the “Big Five” had ranged from between $1 million(£800,000/€900,000) to $10 million (£8 million/€9 million).

The five include England and double World Cup winners Germany, who have launched a joint bid for the 2027 tournament with The Netherlands and Belgium.

France, Italy and Spain have also been identified in a group dubbed the "Big Five".

"The offers from broadcasters, mainly in the 'Big 5' European countries, are still very disappointing and simply not acceptable," Infantino declared.

"The viewing figures of the FIFA Women’s World Cup are 50-60 per cent of the men's FIFA World Cup, yet the broadcasters’ offers in the 'Big 5' European countries for the FIFA Women’s World Cup are 20 to 100 times lower than for the men’s FIFA World Cup."

The comparable figures for the men’s World Cup are thought to have been at least $100 million (£79 million/€91 million) as part of a worldwide deal believed to be worth $6.5 billion (£5.2 billion/€6 billion) for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Part of the reason for the European response may have been the fact that the competition will not be played in prime-time - a downside of trying to spread the World Cup around the world.

There are due to be 64 matches played in the tournament, with the earliest group match scheduled to kick off at 2am Central European Time (CET).

The earliest quarter-final match is listed for 3am, although the semi-finals are scheduled for 10am CET and 12pm CET, respectively.

Writing in The Guardian, Suzanne Wrack argues that one of the main reasons for the comparative paucity of the offers for broadcasting and commercial rights to the latest edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup stems from the fact that it has, until now, been regarded as an "add-on" in negotiations for the rights to the men’s World Cup finals.

"There has been little effort to gauge the value of the tournament in its own right, which has held back women’s football. From the big - undervalued rights -  to the small - not enough official merchandise and low kit availability - for almost 32 years the Women’s World Cup has been pretty much deemed worthless and unprofitable by FIFA. It has been charity. It is loss-making and FIFA will take the hit because the optics of not supporting a Women’s World Cup in an increasingly progressively minded society is not acceptable."

While she notes Infantino’s militancy, she observes: "The problem is that the demand for a huge increase in funds allocated from broadcasters for the Women’s World Cup is being demanded by an organisation that has historically been responsible for the undervaluing of the tournament. When the global governing body places little value on a tournament, why should federations, broadcasters, sponsors or anyone else act differently?”

In the crucial days before a solution was found, Wrack also noted, there was a wilderness where there should have been a steady media build-up - "instead, prospective viewers and existing fans in those countries have been left in limbo."

Uncoupling the women’s World Cup from the men’s in terms of rights represents a step forward, certainly. But the realpolitik is that it is also a huge step down.

Unsurprisingly, broadcasters didn’t react to Infantino’s rant by saying - "Do you know what Gianni? You’re absolutely right. We have been blind. Have another billion. Sorry."

Last month a deal was done which added the Big Five - and Ukraine - to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) arrangement to broadcast the World Cup free-to-air in a number of other European countries.

EBU director general Noel Curran commented: "We are delighted to have been able to build on our long-term and successful relationship with FIFA to secure the rights on behalf of Europe’s biggest public-service broadcasters.

"The FIFA Women’s World Cup is one of sport’s most exciting and fastest growing events and we are committed to working hand-in-hand with FIFA to ensure the women’s game is enjoyed by as many people as possible across the continent.

"We see women’s football as being central to our content strategy and one of the cornerstones of the new digital platform we hope to launch next year."

ARD and ZDF in Germany, BBC and ITV in Britain, France Télévisions in France, RAI in Italy and RTVE in Spain have been listed as the EBU’s broadcasters for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, added: "We have shown every Women’s World Cup on the BBC since 1999 and we are happy to extend our partnership with FIFA for the upcoming tournament.

"The growth of the women’s game is extraordinary, demonstrated by the 28 million who watched BBC coverage of the 2019 Women’s World Cup and the huge audience of 17.4 million who watched our coverage of the Euro 2022 final on TV last summer.

"In partnership with ITV we are delighted to make this World Cup available to the widest possible audience and free to air."

But the joint deal with BBC and ITV for the rights is reportedly worth around £9 million (£11.5 million/€10.5 million) which is just eight per cent of the cost of televising the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal has reported that FIFA has fallen roughly $100 million (£76million/€89million) short of its goal for the 2023 Women’s World Cup broadcast rights fees.

FIFA aimed to sign deals valuing the quadrennial event’s global broadcasting rights at $300 million (£229 million/€267 million), but it will instead settle for closer to $200 million (£152 million/€178 million).

FIFA is on track to bring in about $50 million i(£38 million/€44 million) in new broadcast rights sales since last year’s men’s World Cup, which is about a third of the $150 million (£115 million/€133 million) new fees it hoped to secure.

In the United States, however, Fox has recorded strong ad sales for its upcoming Women’s World Cup coverage, selling out 90 per cent of its inventory by June and 50 per cent more than the 2019 tournament.

Fox Sports chief executive Eric Shanks told Front Office Sports that the suboptimal time difference is why FIFA placed the United States team in New Zealand instead of Australia.

"I think that’s a big reason why FIFA realised that it’s probably better for the US national team to be based in New Zealand," Shanks said.

"One of the reasons probably is that time zone’s much more friendly to the US

“So we’ll have the early games while they’re in New Zealand starting at like 9pm Eastern.

"And then it kinda gets a little bit all over the place; they’re either gonna be primetime games or fairly earlier in the morning."

Infantino has outlined his broad thoughts on developing the women’s game to the Olympic Channel Podcast hosted by Edward Knowles.

Asked how far away we are from having a woman footballer with the profile and earning power of a Lionel Messi or a Cristiano Ronaldo, Infantino responded: “I hope we are not too far. What we have seen with the last Women’s World Cup in France has really been unprecedented.

"Viewing figures including in countries which have not really been relevant before such as Italy and Brazil, but also in England obviously and the US, we knew it and we know it.

“France [2019] was incredible - the women’s national team had higher viewing figures than the men’s national period in the same period, in official games not in friendly games.

"This is showing that it it changing, it is moving. Now we have to build on that by offering new events, new competitions, new ideas to the women’s game.     

"It shouldn’t be just a copy paste of the men’s game. We have to be innovative, we have to be creative, in the way we organise but also in the way we commercialise.

"And this is certainly one of the big mistakes which was done in the past, I probably think by all sports governing bodies who commercialised rights.

"They commercialised the men’s competitions to the sponsor broadcaster, and they would buy the men’s, and they would give them on top, for free or just as a goodwill gesture - OK you can be sponsor as well of the women’s game, or the women’s World Cup or whatever.

"This definitely has to change. We need dedicated resources for the women’s game. And we need stars as well.

"We have certainly a few that are coming up and I hope that in the near future we can see women having the same impact as the Messis and Ronaldos in the men’s game."

Since the last World Cup four years ago, Infantino has been advocating for the creation of a separate Women’s Club World Cup.

"I think it should be a specific tournament," he said. "I think if we want to have women’s football developing it shouldn’t just be the opener of the men’s tournament.

"It can be a good promotion to kick it off, but it has to develop and the strategy must be to develop it on its own because it certainly has the possibility to become huge.

"Because the last World Cup attracted more than one billion viewers. This is way above, even other men’s sports, so I think the potential is there to give it its own important segment in the international match calendar."

Plans have been announced for the establishment of this idea, although FIFA has said the women’s calendar will remain unchanged until 2025.

Good news on the ticketing front was announced at the start of June as this year's Women's World Cup appeared set to become the most attended standalone female sporting event in history after ticket sales broke the one million barrier.

As of last month, Infantino said 1,032,884 tickets for the tournament had been sold - already more than the total sales for the 2019 Women's World Cup in France.

"Australia and New Zealand 2023 is on track to become the most attended FIFA Women's World Cup in history," said Infantino. "The future is women - and thanks to the fans for supporting what will be the greatest FIFA Women's World Cup ever.”

Setting aside the fact that every new World Cup according to Infantino is the greatest ever, local variations within the two host countries have since required restorative action on the ticketing front.

While the number of ticket sales had risen, according to FIFA, to 1.25 million last week, it was also announced that Xero, one of the event sponsors, will be giving away 20,000 tickets to matches in New Zealand as ticket sales remain sluggish in a country where rugby is the national sport.

Of the 1.25 million tickets sold, just 320,000 are for matches in New Zealand, where only six are close to a sell-out.

Now the accounting firm Xero, a tournament partner, has said it will offer 5,000 free tickets to a match at each of New Zealand's four venues.

Women's World Cup chief executive Dave Beeche told the New Zealand Herald that FIFA is "comfortable" with the current rate of ticket sales in New Zealand.

He claimed sales had picked up in recent weeks as coverage of the tournament had increased.

The decision to raise the number of teams in the FIFA Women’s World Cup to 32 is something that my erstwhile colleague Nancy Gillen argued against in an insidethegames blog. But Gillen - who will be at the World Cup Down Under - now thinks otherwise.

"I felt like it would lead to a lot of one-sided scorelines," she said. "But I’ve changed my mind on it now as it’s been great to see debut teams like Haiti qualify and hopefully in turn that helps the development of women’s football in those countries."