A poisonous pay dispute has been thrust into the spotlight by Australia’s professional footballers four days before the Women’s World Cup.

But fears the campaign will distract the Matildas ahead of their opening match against Ireland on Thursday have been rejected by the head of the country’s football union.

Professional Footballers Australia co-chief executive Kate Gill said it is a long-running issue the players wanted to address before the tournament.

“I don’t see this as new, I definitely don’t see it as distraction,” she said, remaining confident the group would be at their best at Stadium Australia on Thursday.

“I mean, women, we can multitask. So they can do two things at once … for sure they can worry about football and they can also use their voices loud and proud which they’ve chosen to do.”

The Football Australia chief executive, James Johnson, said the team has been in a “bubble” and was still focused on their performance.

“These sorts of issues pop up at a Women’s World Cup,” he said. “It happened in Qatar, it happened in France 2019. I don’t think broadly speaking there’s been many distractions for this team whatsoever, I think they’re in a good space.”

On Monday, just four days from their opening match, the Matildas took to social media to call for equal prize money for Fifa women’s and men’s tournaments.

“Fifa will still only offer women one quarter as much prize money as men, for the same achievement,” midfielder Tameka Yallop said in the video.

The overall prize pools are US$110m (A$161m) for women and US$440m (A$645m) for men.

Fifa declined to comment on the Matildas’ plea, but a representative from the organisation highlighted the efforts towards pay parity, including a trebling of prize money compared to the 2019 tournament and conditions for this year’s Women’s World Cup matching that of last year’s men’s tournament.

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, told the Fifa congress in March its ambition was to have equality in payments for the 2026 men’s and 2027 Women’s World Cup.

“This is the objective that we set to ourselves,” he said. “Fifa is stepping up with actions, not just with words.”

However, Gill fears Fifa may step back from the pledge. The organisation has complained of a lack of interest from European broadcasters in the 2023 tournament and the secretary-general, Fatma Samoura, warned in May that without sponsorship and broadcast revenue the pursuit of equal pay may be compromised.

“I think they’ve given themselves room to weasel their way out of it,” Gill said. “But I think that’s where we need to hold them to account and that’s why this message is so powerful and so impactful. And it’s calling it out directly.”

The calls in football follow last week’s announcement by the International Cricket Council that men and women at major tournaments would receive the same prize money.

The Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive, Todd Greenberg, said the game was proud to set an example.

“What Australian cricket has shown is that if you invest upfront, rather than waiting for the game to hit certain milestones, the professionalism and the appeal to fans will come.” he said.