Two leading female applicants for the England women’s team manager’s job have heavily criticised the Football Association’s decision to place Phil Neville in charge.

Vera Pauw and Carolina Morace, highly respected coaches in the international game, contest the FA’s assertion that there was a severe lack of suitably qualified female candidates and suggest that double standards were applied in the recruitment process. They are angry that, whereas the bar appeared to be set very high when assessing women’s qualifications for the post, it seemed to be lowered dramatically to accommodate Neville.

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“It is a system of recruitment that works against experienced female coaches,” said Pauw, a former Scotland, Netherlands, Russia and South Africa coach who has recently taken charge of Houston Dash in the United States.

“But it’s not just in England, it’s a problem all over the world where women coaches who are ready to flourish are actively pushed out of the game. There are too many male coaches who can’t get jobs in the men’s game but are then given chances with women’s teams.”

Morace is well known in Italy as a former star striker turned Serie A television commentator who became the first woman to coach a men’s professional team when she managed Serie C Viterbese. The 53-year-old has subsequently coached three national women’s sides: Italy, Canada – whom she lifted from 12th to sixth in the world while also winning the 2010 Concacaf Gold Cup – and Trinidad and Tobago. Whereas John Herdman, her Canada successor, was shortlisted by the FA, Morace was not interviewed.

“I am so frustrated,” she said. “I don’t understand why the FA are saying that no woman who was good enough wanted the job.”

Pauw’s and Morace’s views are reflected by other international female coaches and administrators who prefer to remain anonymous. There is a consensus that the path has been smoothed for Neville in a manner female counterparts can only dream of.

“Phil Neville, who has never coached a women’s team and has only coached one men’s game as a manager [as caretaker at Salford City] has been appointed for his ‘potential’ only,” Pauw said. “Qualified women were interested in the England job. Some of the most experienced women in our game did apply. They had done very well in lifting teams up the rankings but were not deemed good enough. Some with huge international experience did not even get interviews.”

Granted potential candidates who talked to the FA’s recruitment intermediary were told that the preference was for an English coach but this seems at odds with Baroness Sue Campbell’s assertion that a “global search” had been conducted. The FA’s head of women’s football said: “We looked at 147 candidates across 30 countries; you could say any name in the women’s game and I could tell you we spent time talking to those people.”

In a recent BBC interview Neville dismayed Pauw by suggesting the England role would be a good stepping stone for him. “They don’t want women with experience but Phil Neville talks about the job being good experience for him and good for his career,” said the 55-year-old Dutchwoman, who pointed out that, since 2000, every major women’s football tournament bar one has been won by teams coached by women. “A national team is not a place to gain experience as an aim.”

The FA’s four-person shortlist did include two female candidates but none of that quartet wanted the job. Campbell said this was largely down to the “scrutiny” they feared they would face in the wake of the sacking of Mark Sampson, Neville’s predecessor, for “inappropriate” behaviour with a player in a previous job.

Morace, like Pauw, insists there remained a choice of several appropriately qualified candidates who were completely unconcerned about media scrutiny.

“I’m sorry, you can’t say there aren’t women available who are good enough to coach England and that they’re all worried about the media scrutiny,” said the Italian. “Come on, that’s not true. The Baroness [Campbell] is wrong.”

Pauw and Morace are concerned that the pathway for younger coaches is in danger of being blocked. “I’m worried that younger women coaches will be discouraged by the lack of opportunity and give up,” Pauw said. “People [like the FA recruiters] don’t do it on purpose. They just have not experienced the system from our side. That’s why we have to speak up for ourselves now. No one else is doing it.”