While FIFA chief women’s officer Sarai Bareman provided no update on broadcast rights when asked in an interview to mark the tournament’s ticketing milestone,she did say those timezone-related criticisms no longer held water.

“Football is a global sport. FIFA has 211 member associations. They’re in the northern hemisphere,they’re in the southern hemisphere,they’re right across every time zone,” Bareman said.

“The popularity of the game – not just women’s football,but their game in general – we saw with Qatar,it transcends things like difficult timezones. People are going to get up at any time in the morning to watch it,and people will travel.

“One of the barriers to women’s football growing is a lack of resources around the globe. We know if we can unlock the commercial value of the Women’s World Cup,that that revenue flows back into the women’s game and will lift everybody. It’s really important that[commercial partners] see and understand this is a really valuable product,and the numbers and the data back it up.

“We’ve seen some really,really great indications of travelling fans who are interested,that want to come down under ... it’s outstripped the ticket sales in France within the same time period,and France was already,for us,a huge milestone.”

Aside from the co-hosts,China,Germany,the USA,England and Ireland are the countries with the most fans thus far who have committed to travel for the Women’s World Cup,according to FIFA – and Bareman said the flow-on effect for the sport here will be huge.

“We saw it with France. We’ve seen it with the Women’s Euro last year. The impact of a World Cup in a country and a region is so big,” she said.

“There were 850,000 women and girls in England who laced up their boots after the World Cup in France. We saw numbers like that all over the place.

“Attendances in leagues and stadiums went up massively after the Women’s World Cup in France,commercial deals were signed,individual player endorsements ... all football stakeholders – the leagues,the clubs,everyone that’s involved from elite right down to grassroots in Australia and New Zealand – we all need to stand in a state of readiness to be able to deal with and receive the massive momentum that will come off this event.”

Watch every match of theUEFA Champions League,UEFA Europa League andUEFA Europa Conference League on Stan Sport. Returns for the Round of 16,with all the action streaming ad-free,live and on demand from February 15.