Women's World Cup: BBC eager to strike deal with Fifa to broadcast tournament

The BBC is "absolutely committed" to securing a deal with Fifa to broadcast the Women's World Cup, its chief content officer has said.

With 37 days until the tournament in Australia and New Zealand, there is still no agreement between football's governing body and any UK broadcaster.

It means games involving England may not be available to domestic viewers.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino had threatened a European TV blackout if rights offers were not improved.

Last month, Infantino said "disappointing" offers from the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany and France were a "slap in the face" of the players and "all women worldwide" and it was Fifa's "moral and legal obligation not to undersell" the event.

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

On 31 May, the sports ministers of those five European countries urged broadcasters and Fifa to "quickly reach an agreement".

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

Speaking to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday, the BBC's Charlotte Moore said the corporation would not be pressured by Fifa into overpaying.

"We really look at fair value for everything that we do, and the BBC has a strong track record in paying absolutely the right price for things," said Moore.

"As I say, we're market-assessing and audience-assessing and looking at the variants for each bid that we put in, and that's our promise to the audience and to licence fee payers.

"I think we would all share the intention to get these things nailed down because for productions it's incredibly important, so I think it's in everybody's interests to sort these things out.

"But I can't comment on commercial negotiations that would obviously affect those decisions. We're absolutely committed.

"We are doing everything we can to make sure that we obtain the rights for as much of women's sport as we can within the budget and the funding envelope that we have, and we make those decisions across the year.

"We go into negotiations at the right time when those bids come up and we have to go through a system. But we don't always dictate the speed of that financial situation."

Rights offers for previous tournaments were bundled together with other events, including the men's World Cup, but Fifa has now separated the bidding process.

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

It has widely been reported that the BBC and ITV will share broadcasting rights for this summer's tournament, although no announcement has been made. The latest joint bid by the broadcasters was reportedly near to £8m.

According to Fifa's data, 1.12 billion people watched the 2019 World Cup in France, a record for a women's tournament.

Almost half of total viewing hours were from Europe, with the average viewing time of 4.14 hours per person across the whole tournament more than double the average of the rest of the world.

That could be partly attributed to the favourable time zone and that seven of the eight quarter-finalists were European, with England reaching the semi-finals before losing to eventual winners the United States.

Kick-off times for the 2023 World Cup are less favourable, ranging from 01:00 to 12:00 BST, although England's three group games start between 09:30 and 12:00 and the final is scheduled to kick off at 11:00.

"We want to do everything we can, thinking about value for money for our audiences and whether tournaments are live in-peak or whether they're through the middle of the night and where they're placed," added Moore.

"We take a huge amount of care and detail about how we make sure we don't over-inflate the market but we really help the market grow, so we're looking at that."

The 2023 World Cup starts on 20 July, with European champions England beginning their campaign against tournament debutants Haiti in Brisbane on 22 July.