Collectively, we’ve come so far in women’s football, we’ve achieved so much, and at the same time, there’s still shed loads to do.

It’s really challenging and really exciting all at the same time. We think that it’s really important that we try to be bold when it’s needed to make sure that we’re shaping the game in a way that’s right for women’s football.

It’s a really pivotal moment now. The way I see it, the women’s game is still small enough to be malleable; there’s still enough shaping to do to make sure it’s the right shape for the future.

But it’s also now so big that everyone notices change, and we get lots of feedback from everyone in the game who cares so much and shares their point of view, some of it conflicting.

What we can’t do is let the feedback paralyse us. If you get too many conflicting points of view and you listen to all of them, you won’t do anything, so sometimes we’ll do things that not everybody agrees with because there’s so many opinions.

We will unashamedly keep trying to be bold, so long as it’s the right thing to do, but we will always keep listening really hard, even when that’s uncomfortable.
On the theme of we’ve achieved so much and there’s still so much to do, I see that throughout the pyramid.

The Lionesses’ success has been amazing. It’s driven unprecedented growth, but we also know that more success isn’t inevitable. The rest of the world is catching up and investing more.

There are some critical structural things we have to get right to protect the long-term success around the pathway and playing opportunities.

WSL success is also brilliant to watch, but we know is far from plain sailing – it’s taken masses of investment from the league and from clubs and it will continue to. So, collectively we have to try and safeguard that success and build the entire pyramid that sits beneath it.

We’ve made loads of inroads into equal access in schools, particularly for girls, but then recent research tells us that misogyny and societal pressures are stopping more girls from playing than they used to, and that’s a really big challenge that we’ve collectively got to face.

We definitely only have one motive and that’s to try and do the right thing and drive the right transformation and growth for women’s football.

We’re unapologetic about that, but we’re also trying to be as humble as possible, because when you’re trying for change and trying new things you often get things wrong as often as you get them right, so we’ve got to be grown up enough to cope with that.

We think the opportunity that would come with hosting the World Cup [in 2035] would be enormous because we’ve got such a long run in for such a special thing and you can use the World Cup to amplify everything that we’re trying to do in women’s football, women’s sport and women and girls in society.

A tournament that size, we think, can genuinely rewire the way people think about women and girls and what they can do and gender roles overall, which makes the world better for everybody.

When you think about the World Cup, you’ve got women’s football in the centre of that, so we can change the world of women’s football. The concentric circle around that is women’s sport, and through women’s football we can change the world for women’s sport. And then the next concentric circle around that is gender equality and changing the way people think.

At the moment, we’re working really hard on the football bit, we’re working really closely with all major sports across the country to think about how we grow women’s sports together, and then hopefully, with the World Cup and things like that, we can work really hard on that outer concentric circle and rewire the way people think entirely.