FARA WILLIAMS feels diversity has taken a step back since she and the other football-mad kids on her Battersea estate replicated Wembley finals in cages and dared to dream of one day playing in the real deal.

The 40-year-old, England’s most-capped footballer of either sex, made her Lionesses debut as a 17-year-old in 2001 and hung up her boots two trophy-laden decades later.

Much has improved as women’s football has evolved into what the ex-midfielder’s former England team-mate Karen Carney last year declared could become a billion-pound industry – but Williams is wary that an increasingly elite game also risks leaving less privileged girls behind.