Alex Scott breaks silence as UK scores Women's World Cup 2035 bid

England's Lionesses will once again roar when the comes home to the UK in 2035.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced . Now, if our bid is ratified at next year's FIFA Congress, it will be the first football World Cup to be held in Britain since the men's team in 1966.

Thrilled by the news, Alex Scott, former Women's and England player and current host of Focus, tells The : "That is just amazing!

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"If I go back to when we hosted the Olympics in 2012, that was one of our first times walking out at Wembley as a football team for . We got 87,000 people there, that was a historic moment for us, walking out.”

Excited by the opportunities the 2035 tournament will bring for a new generation of female players and for girls watching from the stands, she continues: “For people coming into stadiums, [who aspire] to be what they are cheering on; for every single football team that they go to watch in that tournament, it’s going to be absolutely epic.”

Alex was speaking at the launch of The Playbook: Mastering the Game, by Bend It Like Beckham author Narinder Dhami, 66, who has profiled 11 of football’s most formidable female players, coaches and referees to inspire girls to join in with the beautiful game.

This coincides with the launch of Girls4Football, a new initiative from Mastercard aiming to nurture skills in young girls on and off the pitch.

Writer Narinder remembers playing football in the street growing up in Wolverhampton, but being “sternly discouraged” from the sport by teachers at school.

“There were die-hard sexist attitudes back in the ‘70s, which hopefully don't exist so much anymore, but it wasn't seen as any kind of thing for girls to do,” she recalls.

“I was brought up in quite a working-class area. We played football with the boys, but at school we were discouraged from doing it.

“I'm not saying I would have got to Alex [Scott]'s heights of achievement, but I might have wanted to join a club. But there wasn't anything to join. You weren't even allowed to join boys’ clubs.”

Born to an Indian father and English mother, the author of more than 300 books, says she nearly passed up the opportunity to write the novelisation of Bend It Like Beckham in 2002.

But it’s now even used in Germany to teach English, according to Narinder, who still get royalties from it.

She has, however, never met , as he was forced to cancel an appearance at the film’s London premiere after breaking a metatarsal bone in his foot - almost costing him his place on the England squad in the 2002 World Cup.

She laughs: “If I ever were to meet him, I’d say’ thank you very much for giving my career a huge kick-start!’”