Phil Neville believes the women’s game is on the brink of “boom time” but has advised his England players to put glory before money and concentrate on football rather than chasing commercial deals.

“I’m a little bit old school and I think you’ve got to earn your success in life,” said the England manager as he prepared for Friday’s friendly against Canada at Manchester City’s Academy Stadium. “I say it to my team all the time. You’ve got to earn every little bit you get because, if you earn it, you feel a lot better. We can’t have it given to us on a plate.”

England players command £30,000 a year from central Football Association contracts in addition to individual club deals which, in some cases, lift overall incomes to six figure sums but there have been suggestions the long march towards closer equality with men is progressing too slowly.

While an announcement from Adidas that the sportswear retailer will pay its contracted female footballers the same bonuses for winning the World Cup in France as the men received at Russia 2018 has been welcomed, eyebrows were raised at the disparity in Fifa’s prize fund. Although the World Cup winners will receive prize money of £3.1m – a doubling of the sum USA won for triumphing at Canada 2015 – it is dwarfed by the £29.7m on offer for lifting the men’s World Cup.

Neville, though, feels there is a danger of an evolving game, which, in England, has only recently shifted from part-time to professional, putting the cart before the horse. “The jump in prize money is fantastic but I tell my players don’t go chasing it,” said the former Manchester United and England full-back. “We’ve got to produce the performances on the field. If we win the World Cup, there will be that many opportunities for my team it’ll be unbelievable.

“Fifa has put the prize money up a lot, we’re being supported unbelievably by the FA and Fifa in the summer in terms of our budgets, and in the next four of five years we’ll get real equality.”

Phil Neville said England Women’s training facilities at St George’s Park were ‘unbelievable’. Photograph: Lynne Cameron for The FA/Rex/Shutterstock

In the interim he is anxious England remain grounded. “We come to this unbelievable training facility [St George’s Park in Burton] and get everything given to us but I want us to earn that,” he said. “We’ve got to produce the best football and put on the best show. It was always something Sir Alex Ferguson told me. If we do that, the money and the sponsorship will come to us.

“The challenge for my players is to connect with the public. If the public get to know their personalities and their stories, it will be boom time. It’s utopia and there’s no end to where we can get to.”

After winning the SheBelieves Cup in the US last month England’s morale is high but Neville remains wary of complacency. “These next two games – against Canada and Spain [at Swindon on Tuesday] – will be harder than the SheBelieves,” he said. “Our challenge is not to take our eye off the ball. I’ve seen teams do that and they get beat. They get found out.”

Ranked fifth in the world to England’s third, Canada aim to avenge their World Cup quarter-final defeat against Mark Sampson’s team four years ago. “Canada are physical,” Neville said. “Spain are a tiki-taka side, they’re different. It’ll be interesting to see which players I play in which games to give them the type of test I think they need. I want two wins; the best teams keep winning.”

He intends combining victory with rotation. “There are players I need to protect. Those who’ve had six or seven games in the past month won’t be risked; sorry, but I’ve got to think of the bigger picture.”

Rest and fun are integral to that vision. “We went to Qatar in January and the camp was going to be physical, training twice a day, bang, bang, bang,” Neville said. “But, when we got out there, we gave them four days of the nine off. I realised I got more by giving them an experience and team building and energy. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned in the past 12 months.

“Fun, enjoyment and making memories is what we’re all about. Football isn’t life or death, it’s there to be enjoyed; my players are at their best when they’re happy.”