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Top football managers are often compared to top business leaders but, judging by Brian Barwick's appearance at the London Business Forum (LBF), it's a far greater challenge to run the beautiful game than to play it.

The chief executive of the Football Association (FA) described his role as one of huge variety, arcane management structures and intense public scrutiny. It was also clear, from his impassioned response to certain questions, that the job comes with unique social responsibilities. As he put it, the FA has the potential to be a tremendous "power for good".

Barwick had agreed to take questions from a 100-strong LBF audience, at a media centre on Millbank. Everyone present seemed to be a football fan. We were here to satisfy our curiosity about the game's ongoing developments as well as to learn a few generic lessons in management. And in this effort we were led ably by compere Chris Brady, dean of Cass Business School and author of The 90-Minute Manager.

Brady was once a youth player for Leyton Orient, and seemed to have lost none of his terrier-like keenness. Barwick, by contrast, was more of a St Bernard - solid, unflappable, gruffly beneficent.

The opening question was a simple one: "What is your job?" And Barwick's reply was almost as succinct: "To lead the amateur game, to partner the professional game, to maximise participation in football, to govern the sport and to provide a well-funded FA for the good of the game." In truth, however, it would take him another hour to answer in full. The scale of the FA's operations is awesome, and whenever the opportunity arose he would rattle off some of its soundbite statistics: seven million players, 125,000 teams, 37,000 clubs, 2,000 leagues, 30,000 referees, 500,000 volunteers, 24 national teams... The list, and Barwick's enthusiasm for it, seemed endless.

The FA is the "key arbiter" of this network, Barwick said, even though FIFA has ultimate responsibility for the governance of the sport. It treats the concerns of professionals and amateurs equally, he added. "Our job is to make sure the average guy in the park enjoys his game, that there's a referee there, that there's an administrator to make sure the two teams are on the right pitch; that if, next to that pitch, there's a group of children playing, they're properly protected from anything untoward."

Barwick was enthusiastic about the idea of using football as an agent for social change. "We have an amazing ability to connect with young people," he said. "Therefore the government often talks to us [about issues such as] social inclusion, obesity, health, education... We try to deliver as much as we can... some of our best work you'll never read about. My job is to make sure there's enough money flowing through the system to make sure the work's done."

During his first two years in charge, Barwick has certainly brought home the bacon. The £425m television deal he inked this year is worth 42% more than previous one, and the FA's overall sponsorship revenues have increased by 62% over 2006. "It's my ambition to take the FA into the most prosperous period in its history," he said, "and I think I'll do that in about 18 months when we get our first tranche of television money."

Nevertheless, he admitted, the public tends to rate the FA's performance on another criterion: the performance of the England team. And when Brady asked him to name the single biggest obstacle to England's success, he replied it was the weight of expectation. "It's something we are very proud to have in a way, because there are very few things that galvanise the nation as much as the England team," he said. "But we have to deliver off the back of it, and that's sometimes tough."

When England under-performs - as it did, he admitted, during the 2006 World Cup - the response can be disproportionately vicious. "I'm in an industry that plays out in the public and the public are ultimately informed by the newspapers, and not unreasonably newspapers take positions on things that are sometimes absolutely 100% accurate and sometimes opinions," he said with remarkable understatement. "People are not passive about football, they're emotional about it... and that's part of the reason I enjoy and sometimes have to endure the job I do."

Of less public interest, but arguably of much more importance, is the "Burns Report." This major independent review of the FA's structure and activities was published last year and is due to be ratified at the FA's AGM in May. Barwick said he advocated the report's recommendations, seeing them as "an opportunity for an organisation that's 144 years old to look at the way it goes about its business and to modernise."

However, he cautioned, implementing the recommendations will take a lot of effort. Lord Burns found "a lot of fixed positions," during his survey of the organisation, and "in any organisation where you've got conservative routines, people take some moving from those routines." Since January, Barwick and other senior FA executives have been to visit 12 different county football associations, and have encountered "a myriad views".

One of the most contentious issues is the notion of an independent chairman, Barwick said: "The chairman of the FA has always come from within the church, [so] this is quite a move for an organisation of our type - to understand you can actually have an independent chairman who can retain their independence and be good for the game by just being objective."

Assuming the report's recommendations are ratified (and Barwick says that currently the vote is "too close to call"), there will immediately be a restructure of the board, and of the way the professional game and the "national game" (the FA's term for grass-roots football) are funded; committees will be "reconstituted" and there will be some additions to the FA council, with the independent chairman in place by summer 2008. "We're 144 years old, so if it takes three years to move it into a new era that's fine by me," Barwick said.

Asked by an audience member to recap the highs and lows of his first two years running the FA, Barwick again shrugged at the enormity of it all: "There are days you have small victories, there are days when you have big victories, and there are days when you have defeats, both on and off the field of play." The one thing he's very glad to have under his belt, he said, is the television deal. "I've bought the FA rights three times, so selling them was an interesting dynamic for me... quite frankly, if I hadn't delivered on that, I'd have looked at myself seriously in the mirror."

Barwick said his first year was about fully grasping the business and how it was organised; his second was about event management "and occasionally crisis management;" and this year had, so far, been about major commercial deals. Now, with cash-flow secured until 2012, he could begin work on a strategic view for the organisation.

Overall, it was clear he had one of the most varied portfolios of any job imaginable, and that there was a delicate political line to tread in every area of his business.

"Three weeks ago I was over in Israel, and as part of my duties I went to the Holocaust museum and laid a wreath," he recalled. "I then went to the [England] game the following day and we drew, and most people's opinion was that it was a game we could or should have won and we got off the back of it what we expected [in terms of negative coverage]. On the Tuesday I was handed the safety certificate that meant I could open Wembley... The following night I had to fly to Barcelona where we played Andorra. We won that game 3-0, but it was a difficult night in some people's eyes, so we had to deal with that. The following day I landed the £425m television deal. The following day I had a day off."

His wife, he admitted, is truly a football widow, but "that's the breadth of the job."