Sue Campbell is on a mission to transport women’s football in England to sport’s sunlit uplands. “It’s in a good place now but the aim is to move it to a really iconic place,” she says. “That’s something Martin Glenn’s determined to achieve.” Appropriately enough, the Football Association’s chief executive has taken a significant stride towards fulfilling this ambition by making Lady Campbell his new head of women’s football.

As chair of UK Sport she presided over Team GB and ParalympicsGB’s unprecedented medal haul at the 2012 London Olympics and Glenn believes Campbell possesses the clout needed to ensure the momentum gained by England’s bronze-medal finish at last summer’s World Cup in Canada will not be allowed to evaporate.

“Sue’s widely regarded as one of the most influential people in British sport,” says Kelly Simmonds, the FA’s director of participation and development. “This appointment’s a massive statement about the FA’s ambitions for the women’s game.”

It has left Campbell contemplating something akin to a massive jigsaw puzzle depicting a map of England. Currently completed in places but a jumble in others, it reflects areas of the country, such as the south-west, in which women’s football is organised and accessible and others in which it does little to inspire involvement.

Some pieces do not quite connect – a consequence of the often indistinct pathways linking the grassroots game to Mark Sampson’s elite Lionesses. “As with all other women’s sports, my passion is creating opportunity by tackling big issues,” Campbell says. “We have to decide on the ideal pathway between the first level of participation and elite performance, and make sure it’s consistent across the country.

“At the moment, women’s football in England is a bit like a patchwork quilt but we want to take all the good stuff and create a consistent national picture, to take examples of good practice and make them common practice. To create a coherent national strategy.”

The idea is to substantially increase the number of women and girls playing football in England. “Martin wants to double it,” Campbell says. That would entail quite a jump from the 147,000 who competed in affiliated league and cup games last year, not to mention the 1.1 million enjoying more casual kickabouts.

Already football is the biggest team sport played by English women but continued growth depends on an amalgam of factors. There is the need to sustain the improvement of the national side, while ensuring sustained development of the Women’s Super League.

In an era of increasing inactivity and obesity among young people at a time when the social pressures on girls have arguably never been greater, Campbell does not shy away from the concept of the Lionesses as role models.

“It’s great that they’re such very good footballers but let’s celebrate them as great women as well,” she says. “They can show girls that if you’re passionate about what you’re doing and you make some sacrifices, you can get there. Those are qualities that can only help girls in future employment – and life.”

A former leading junior pentathlete and international netball player and coach, she regards Fara Williams – the England midfielder who, only a few years ago, was sleeping rough on the streets – as a wonderful example of football’s transformative powers.

Then there is Claire Rafferty, the England defender-cum-gifted economist who credits the game with helping provide her with the necessary discipline, energy and determination to forge a part-time career as an analyst at Deutsche Bank.

“Football has enormous social power to reach out and help create a safer, happier, healthier cultural environment for girls,” says Campbell, who is anxious to extend its reach to disabled and minority ethnic communities. “The England players can be very positive role models.”

She intends to liaise closely with Wayne Allison, the FA’s new black, Asian and minority ethnic project manager, about how best to implement ideals of inclusivity. “We’ve got to reach out and get into communities,” she says, with typical enthusiasm and clarity.

A need to forge a close rapport between the women’s game and the Premier League has also been identified. Most of the increasingly professional WSL teams are affiliated to Premier League men’s clubs, most notably Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Sunderland, with the women sharing many of the men’s medical, sports science and coaching facilities.

The consequent leap in technical standards and fitness helps explain why Sampson’s Lionesses are now ranked among the serious contenders to win Euro 2017 in the Netherlands and the next World Cup in France but there are some leading clubs, Newcastle United among them, who are rather less generous to their female teams.

“I’ll be talking to Richard Scudamore,” she says of the Premier League’s chief executive. “We need to have Richard and the Premier League onside over strategy.” If the aim is to increase sponsorship opportunities and “really lift” media coverage, there is a recognition that progress at all levels will be stalled unless the standard of women’s coaching and, particularly, refereeing improves at lower levels.

There is a certain tension between the growing number of male coaches seeking positions in the WSL and an overall lack of female equivalents. That is partly down to a shortage of suitably qualified candidates and Campbell will be examining ways to encourage more women to take up not only coaching but refereeing and administration. “We’ll look at whether we’re providing the right kind of qualifications,” she says. “Are the pathways right? Are they all connected properly? How do we create a strategy whereby women see themselves as future referees? How do we make volunteering attractive?”

One obvious answer is to have a successful national team – and this is where Sampson and Dan Ashworth, the FA’s director of elite development, are eager to listen to the ideas of the woman who played such a big part in ensuring Britain’s athletes performed so exceptionally in London 2012. “I’ll be talking to Mark and Dan about widening the talent base,” she says. “We’ll look at whether the way the leagues are structured is right.”

In March Sampson’s Lionesses fly to Florida to take part in the SheBelieves Cup against three of the world’s top sides, the United States, Germany and France. “It’s the level we need to be involved at,” says an approving Campbell, who is well aware of the gargantuan effort previously invested by, among others, Hope Powell, England’s former women’s coach, and Howard Wilkinson, the one-time FA technical director, in battling the blazer brigade to get the female game to this point.

“Hope and Howard achieved a lot,” says the woman unlikely to rest until she has helped Sampson and his Lionesses build on that pair’s legacy by fulfilling Glenn’s blueprint.

At first glance, a 67-year-old baroness may look an unlikely revolutionary but English football’s power-brokers would be unwise to underestimate her extraordinary ability to inspire and implement change. Not for nothing does a notice in her office declare: “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”