US Soccer will ramp up its investment in the women’s game by hosting a tournament for four of the top five ranked nations in the world in the run-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The SheBelieves Cup will pit the hosts against France, Germany and England in a round-robin format, with the winner of the tournament determined by the highest number of points gained over the course of the contests.

SheBelieves will be held between 3 and 9 March 2016, and will take place in the Florida cities of Tampa and Boca Raton, as well as Nashville, Tennessee.

The tournament was conceived and developed by the US women’s national team (USWNT) to inspire young girls, building on the #SheBelieves campaign which occurred during last year’s World Cup.

In addition, US Soccer is offering a four-day Girls Fantasy Camp to coincide with the second set of matches open to girls born in 2001, 2002 and 2003. The camp will provide training sessions with former USWNT players, match tickets, pre-game stadium tours, field-level access to watch the warm-ups, training apparel, accommodation and meals.

As a consequence of staging the competition, the USWNT will not attend Portugal’s Algarve Cup, which it has competed in for the last 18 years.

USWNT coach Jill Ellis said the tournament was “another sign of US Soccer’s dedication to the women’s game”, adding: “When I took this job, one of my main objectives was to play the best teams in the world during our preparation periods and you can’t ask for better matches.”