Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, criticised television networks on Saturday for offering "100 times less" coverage of the women's World Cup than the men's.
Infantino gave his speech in Auckland while women's football was making history and hours before the draw for next year's Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
For the first time ever, there will be 32 teams competing in the World Cup in July–August, and interest worldwide is expected to be at an all-time high.
However, Infantino claimed that the offers made for the television rights were way too cheap without naming any specific networks.
“Broadcasters offer us 100 times less than what they offer us for the men’s World Cup,” Infantino told reporters.
He accused television companies of “pushing us to do more for equality and at the same time we are not going to accept these offers”.
Infantino said that FIFA had invested one billion dollars into women’s football in recent years.
The 2015 and 2019 Women’s World Cups made a financial loss, but Infantino said: “The next World Cup will cost us around $400 million and we hope to break even.”
For the first time, FIFA plans to sell the commercial rights separate from the men’s tournament.
“We are trying to commercialise the Women’s World Cup for the first time on its own,” he said.
The FIFA boss also doubled down on assurances that gay fans who travel to Qatar for the men’s World Cup next month will be safe, despite homosexuality being a criminal offence there.
“I have said it (before), I repeat it – whatever nationality, background, gender, sexual orientation, everyone is welcome in Qatar,” Infantino said.
Infantino also confirmed that the FIFA Clearing House, aimed at regulating the extra payments around transfer fees, will come into force on November 16.
“This will finally bring some transparency and accountability into the whole transfer market,” said Infantino.
“Payments to strange places or strange bank accounts will not be tolerated any more.”
He said the transfer market currently generates about six to seven billion dollars every year and predicts the figure will rise.
“We want to control that and make sure the money goes where it is supposed to.”