Women's World Cup 2015: Six facts you might not know about the football tournament Google is marking with a Doodle

The tournament is 24 this year

Football girls build a circle during the women's world cup 2010 roadshow, seen on July 10, 2010 in Augsburg, Germany. Augsburg will be venue of the women's U20 football world cup 2010 (Johannes Simon/Bongarts/Getty Images)

As a corruption scandal tears through Fifa, football fans at least have one thing to look forward to: the Women’s World Cup 2015 in Canada.

To mark the footballing tournament, Google has released a Doodle on its homepage, featuring sportswomen in action, with a Canadian maple leaf in the centre.

And as women’s football remains less publicised that its male counterpart, here are six facts about the World Cup that you might not know…

The competition is only 24-years-old
Women first competed in a Fifa World Cup in 1991, but the first unofficial women’s World Cup took place in Italy in 1970.

Thousands of women have competed in tournaments
As many as 1,212 players have competed at the FIFA Women's World Cup during the tournament's six previous editions.

It has made refereeing history in 1999
The tournament in the US was a historic one, because the pool of referees were all women for the first time ever.

Japan’s players celebrate with the trophy after the FIFA Women's Football World Cup final in 2011 (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

It’s high tech
Canada’s tournament will be the first Fifa Women's World Cup ever where goal-line technology will be in use throughout

Caroline Morace scored the first hat trick
The Italian footballer's fancy footwork claimed her a world record in 1999, and helped her team win 5-0 against Chinese Taipei.

It's growing

In 1991, only 12 teams competed, before the figure expanded to 16 teams in 1999. This year 24 teams compete, with Cameroon, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand playing for the first time.