WELLINGTON – Co-hosts New Zealand and Australia said Thursday they “urgently” want answers from Fifa over reports Saudi Arabia’s tourism board will sponsor the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Visit Saudi is reportedly poised to be named among the sponsors of the 32-team football tournament to be held in New Zealand and Australia from July 20.

The sponsorship deal looks set to go ahead despite the Gulf kingdom’s poor record on women’s rights.

Officials from Football Australia and New Zealand Football said they were not informed about the planned deal and “have jointly written to Fifa to urgently clarify the situation”.

In a statement, Football Australia said it was “very disappointed” that they “were not consulted on this matter prior to any decision being made”.

Their counterparts in New Zealand said they were “shocked and disappointed” that Fifa had not consulted them.

New Zealand sports minister Grant Robertson on Thursday said Fifa should consider the “empowerment of women and girls” when making commercial arrangements. However, he conceded that the sponsorship was ultimately a decision for Fifa.

“When it comes to women’s sport here in New Zealand, we have made tremendous progress and part of that has been making sure that we are empowering women and girls in sport but also in life generally,” he said in a statement.

“I would like to think that Fifa would understand that as well, and when they are thinking about their commercial arrangements that they would factor that in.”

Former New Zealand international Maia Jackman said the sponsorship would be in “complete opposition” to female empowerment and set back her work as an ambassador for the tournament. She added that it would be a “disempowering message” for women.

Ibrahim Al Kassim, the secretary general of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, said on Wednesday that although his body was not involved in sponsorship deals, such moves were a part of his country’s new engagement with the world. He made the comments at the Asian Football Confederation congress in Bahrain.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has said he expects two billion viewers to tune into the ninth edition of the Women’s World Cup.

World football’s governing body hopes it will expand growth of the women’s game, with the tournament split between two nations for the first time.

The planned sponsorship deal drew heavy criticism.

Australian former international Kathryn Gill said Fifa is “obliged to respect all internationally recognised human rights and to exert its considerable leverage when they are not being respected or protected”.

“The players’ objective is to make the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup a genuine force for good and they will continue to hold Fifa to account when they undermine this,” added Gill, co-chief executive of Australia’s professional footballers’ union.

Amnesty International’s Australia campaigner Nikita White questioned how Saudi’s tourism body could sponsor a Women’s World Cup when “as a woman in Saudi Arabia, you can’t even have a job without the permission of your male guardian”.

She also pointed to Saudi Arabia’s “horrendous record of human rights abuses”.

“The Saudi authorities sponsoring the Women’s World Cup would be a textbook case of sports washing,” she added.

After Gulf neighbours Qatar hosted the men’s Fifa World Cup last year, Saudi Arabia is also spending big on football in an attempt to improve its image.

On Wednesday, the oil-rich nation was confirmed as host of football’s 2027 Asian Cup and is mulling a joint bid to host the 2030 men’s World Cup with Egypt and Greece. AFP, REUTERS