Phil Neville the right man for the job, says FA head of women's football

In an interview with the BBC, Campbell defended Neville's appointment to the job, saying: ""When you speak to Phil, you can hear he is passionate, and he believes he can work with these players to win the World Cup, hopefully an Olympic medal, and hopefully a home European Championships in 2021.

"During his interview, which was six hours long, he spoke very eloquently about his passion to help and mentor and grow women in the game - something that no-one else talked to me about with the same thoughtfulness that he had."

Neville made an apology earlier in the week for previous comments on his social media feeds which had been described as sexist, and which Campbell said had not been picked up when the FA conducted a background check.

"I'm not going to try and excuse it, it isn't excusable, and he has apologised," Campbell said. "In my experience of the man, that is not reflective of the man I've met. I watched him introduce himself with grace and care to every member of the England team. He knew every name. He is a very decent man and I feel really sorry that on his first day of the job he had to deal with this."

Campbell also said that the FA's search for a new coach had been extensive but other candidates were wary about the possible media scrutiny following Mark Sampson's departure in 2017.

"Having seen the way Mark's departure was dealt with by the media - whatever the rights and wrongs of that - many were very nervous of the scrutiny not just for themselves but for their families," she said.

"We actually looked at 147 candidates across 30 countries. I'm not going to name names but you could say any name in the women's game and I could tell you we spent quality time talking to those people.

"Many of them were interested in the role but they were not willing to put themselves into this very difficult - as they saw it - and challenging role. Moving your family halfway round the world and then being subjected to what they thought might be massive intrusion into their lives was a risk they were not willing to take, and I respect that."