Former BBC director general Dyke set to become new chairman of FA

The FA board has unanimously approved the nomination of Dyke, 65, to succeed David Bernstein in July. The appointment is subject to the approval of the FA council.

The FA said in a statement: “Dyke has had a long background in football. He was a director of Manchester United in the late ’90s and since 2006 he has been non-executive chairman of Brentford Football Club, the team he supported as a boy. He will relinquish this role at the end of the season to take up his new post at the FA.”

Dyke, who was appointed Chancellor of the University of York in 2004, added: “Football has always been a big part of my life whether playing 11-a-side on Sunday mornings or six-a-side on Thursday evenings.

“I was brought up in a household where my father was much more interested in whether or not you had won at football than whether you had passed your exams. In my case that was just as well.”

He added: “I am very excited to take on this role with the FA. At the grass roots seven million people play football every weekend, women’s football is booming and the ambition is for it to be the second-biggest team participation sport in England behind only the men’s game, we have the best known, most successful league in the world with the Premier League and the Football League is so much stronger than it was eight years or nine ago.

“Having said that I am a big supporter of financial fair play which, in both the Premier League and the Football League, will have a big impact and hopefully bring a degree of financial sanity to the professional game.”