The team ranked sixth in the world, the Canadian women's national team, will go into the FIFA Women's World Cup next month having not played an official match since April. However, before their final 23-player squad is named, the Olympic champions will play a warm-up match against a boy's team.

Head coach Bev Preistman today named her preliminary squad for the tournament in which the Olympic champions will enter as one of the fancied teams to win after winning the last major international tournament, taking the Gold Medal in the Olympic Football Tournament in Tokyo in 2021. Yet, with her players still in an industrial dispute with their federation, Canada Soccer, they have been unable to organize a warm-up match this month.

It is a year since Canada played a match on home soil. Their 0-0 draw against South Korea on BMO Field in Toronto will remain their last home match going into the World Cup this summer. However, speaking to me today, Preistman told me she has arranged to play against a boy's team in Australia to give her players one last chance to impress her before she names her final squad on July 9.

"We've opted to set up a match against a boy's team which tactically we can work through some things in Australia because we've got half a team that are out of season now, and you've got half a team, for example with Christine Sinclar who will be on the road for ten days with a lot of games in that spell arriving in Australia. So you've almost got a two-pronged group to what the group looks like."

"So therefore, we can manage what that game looks like, how many blocks, what does it tactically need to look like. We just felt that was very beneficial at that point. That game will happen before obviously I have to make my selection on the 23 so a big part of that is where the players are at in order to go into the World Cup.

Explaining why Canada have not been able to arrange an official match ahead of the tournament, Preistman said "The FIFA window in June is not there. That's an issue because we can't pull players out of the NWSL (National Women's Soccer League) before June 26. The window does not start now until July 10 so that's a big piece of the jigsaw. The June window is no longer, so that was the main reason."

Instead 23 of the 25 players named will fly directly to the Gold Coast on June 28 to begin their preparations for the tournament on site in Australia over three weeks before their first match of the tournament on July 21. They will be joined on July 10 by Clarissa Larisey and Evelyne Viens once they are released by their Swedish teams who are still playing through June. In Australia, Canada will play one preparatory match against the European champions, England on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland on July 14. As the game will be played behind-closed-doors, it will not be recorded as an official match.

To help finance this, one of the federation's sponsors, GE Appliances has pledged to direct an additional $100,000 of funding to support the women's national team. Today, an agreement was reached on how to allocate that money with support being provided across three key pillars: sports science and medical innovation, technical innovation and cultural innovation. This will include support and wellness programming for the players potentially travelling vast distances across Australia and New Zealand during the tournament.

The Chief Brand Officer at GE Appliances Canada, Bob Park said "we've made our position incredibly clear. The time for us all to show up, for our sport and its players, is now. We're incredibly thankful to Canada Soccer for the collaborative response to this offer. We're proud to be able to stand behind our Women's National Team where - and when - they need it most."

Priestman told me "I must say a big thank you to GE, there's gaps we needed to fill. Some of the things in our proposal to GE is around wellness and mental health and making sure around key points in our preparation camp this group sort of gets to unplug and get that bit right. It's an incredible help and we're really grateful for that support to help this team get the preparation that they need."