Dan Ashworth has acknowledged “lessons have to be learned” by the Football Association over the handling of Mark Sampson’s sacking as manager of the England Women team, with the technical director recognising “the distress caused to the players involved”.

Sampson was sacked in September after the FA’s chief executive, Martin Glenn, became aware of the “full detail” of inappropriate relationships the Welshman had with female players while he was manager of Bristol Academy. Sampson was deemed fit to continue as England manager after the FA’s safeguarding and investigations team conducted inquiries when the allegations were first made in March 2014, only for Eni Aluko to accuse him of bullying, harassment and racial remarks in May 2016.

He was initially cleared after two separate investigations, only for a third to rule that Sampson had made discriminatory remarks to Aluko and Chelsea’s Drew Spence. Ashworth, Glenn and the FA chairman, Greg Clarke, subsequently faced calls to step down after a digital, culture, media and sport committee hearing in October but all three have remained in their posts.

“It’s also been a difficult year off the pitch with what happened around Mark Sampson, the England Women’s team and the subsequent fallout,” Ashworth wrote in an article for the FA’s website entitled Dan Ashworth: my 2017, that was published on Thursday. “That has been well documented and the chairman has rightly identified the way forward for the organisation to improve.

“Lessons have to be learned and I personally am aware of the distress caused to the players involved, and of course the negative impact on the rest of the squad and the wider women’s game. It’s something that we all take seriously.”

Ashworth, who was appointed technical director in 2012, went on to praise the achievements of England’s representative sides in a year during which the under-17s and under-20s became world champions and the women’s team ended 2017 as the No1 ranked side in Europe. “It is right to acknowledge 2017 has been a really successful year for all of our teams, the women’s, men’s and disability sides,” he wrote. “Things are going in the right direction and the players deserve the positive attention they have been receiving. As the year went along, it felt like the momentum was constantly growing and winning breeds belief. Now, we want to keep it going. We talk about sustained success and our pursuit of excellence and we are still behind some countries. We’ve had a really good run and I believe the gap is closing but we’ve got to do it over a number of years and sustain it like they have. We firmly believe history tells you success at junior level is more likely to bring success at senior level.”