What FIFA plan to do with Women's World Cup that jeopardises coverage

FIFA Women's World Cup coverage is set to be downscaled with FIFA copyrighting its content.

The 2019 tournament gets underway this weekend when France host South Korea.

England are among the favourites for the competition along with Germany and holders USA.

But major news organisations have confirmed they will be downscaling their coverage of the inaugural FIFA Women's Football Convention.

Agence France Presse, Thomson Reuters, the Press Association, Associated Press, its affiliate, the sports news agency SNTV, Spanish agency EFE, Europe-wide agency EPA and German agency CIPA amongst others will not offer video coverage of the convention.

Phil Neville gives instructions to his England players (Getty Images)

They state FIFA has rejected repeated requests for the assignment of copyright requirement to be removed from the body's terms and conditions of accreditation governing venue entry by newsgatherers.

News companies say they cannot ignore FIFA's continued refusal to respect their rights as content creators.

Intellectual property law states that the copyright in any creative work belongs to its creator, a position recently reinforced by the European Parliament.

FIFA already imposes strenuous controls on how news organisations' material can be published and distributed and dictates when, where, and for how long video news content created by news organisations covering its events can be used.

The England Women's team are among the favourites at this summer's World Cup (NurPhoto via Getty Images)

For publishers, FIFA rules mean removing journalist video news material from digital news sites after a specified period - for the convention and FIFA's decision-making Congress it's the end of the year; news material from Women's World Cup training sessions on the eve of matches must be deleted after 48 hours.

Digital publications that are not official rights holders cannot use any in-venue content at all on match-day including press conferences or 'mixed zone' interviews.

The two-day inaugural Women's Football Convention was launched by FIFA on Women's Day this year. Attended by top football administrators and politicians, its agenda aims to address key issues around the development and empowerment of women in football.