They were speaking at the Leaders Meet: The Game Changers conference, in which several panel discussions took place related to improving the development of women’s sport, both on and off the field of play.

Rabbatts, who became the first female director of the English Football Association in 2011, stated it was “absolutely unacceptable” for governing bodies not to have more female representation and believes quotas would have a positive effect on sport.

“I think sport have lagged behind and we need to catch up with what has been happening across businesses,” Rabbatts said.

“It absolutely makes sense, because boards perform better when you have got more diverse people sitting around those tables.

Rabbatts believes a collective effort is required to increase the representation of women and stated the powerful men within sport could play a key role in working to even out the gender balance, while she also revealed she would be in favour of imposing term limits to create a generational shift in the make-up of boards.

Murray, who was named as the captain of the British women’s Fed Cup tennis team in 2011, was in agreement with Rabbatts on the issue of quotas, with both women stressing that the positions would still need to be earned, rather than being token gestures.

The Scot believes the creation of a clear pathway in organisations for women to follow would be vital achieving better representation and stated her shock regarding a statistics which showed the discrepancy between men and women in sport.

“I was absolutely blown away that three per cent of sports journalists were women, five per cent of media coverage of sport was women’s sport and 0.4 per cent of sports sponsorship was for women and the rest was for men," Murray said.

“The moment I read it, I thought this is absolutely ridiculous.

“I do feel now that there is a groundswell behind it [women in sport] and it is about participation but it is about creating opportunities and pathways for whichever aspect of sport it is that women have an equal chance of moving up into these positions.

“I am a big believer that by having more women in decision making positions in sport, will make more things happen for women, because of the understanding of how to promote and push the needs better.”

Murray also expressed the need for more coverage of female role models to encourage particularly younger girls to become engaged with sport, with the focus aimed more on the athlete and their backstory, rather than the event itself.

The subject was also a point of discussion in a panel session related to sponsorship, fans and media coverage of women’s sport, featuring Sochi 2014 Olympic women’s skeleton gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold, Stephen Lyle, commissioning editor for sport at Channel 4 and Tatjana Haenni, head of women's competition at FIFA.

Haenni reflected on the boom in women’s football in recent years and stated that FIFA hoped to see viewership double at the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada from the 400 million who watched the 2011 tournament in Germany on television.

The FIFA deputy director indicated future editions could be sold separately to broadcasters in an attempt to drive further growth in women’s football, differing from the current format in which they are included in a package with the men’s competition, whilst she also stated that sports needed to form clear business plan and strategies to develop their product and increase coverage.

With statistics showing 60 per cent of people in Britain would like to see more women’s sport on tv, with the current level of media coverage amounting to just 7 per cent of all sport covered, Lyle encouraged governing bodies to do more to ensure their sport was viewer friendly, in order to boost the prospect of being commissioned.

“If you put the best athletes in the world on a stage that does not look good, I am telling you that people would not watch it,” he said.

“You can put lesser athletes on a really good looking stage and people would watch it.

The conference also saw panel discussions take place related to how brands target women through sport, engaging communities family and women, as well a talk on the blend between leadership, team work and culture.