Greg Dyke, the man who rescued TV-am with Roland Rat and went toe-to-toe with Alastair Campbell as director general of the BBC, has agreed to take on the challenge of leading the Football Association in its 150th year.

Dyke, ousted in controversial circumstances in 2004 in the wake of the Hutton inquiry, will take over as FA chairman from David Bernstein when he steps down after two and a half years in July. His appointment was unanimously approved by the FA board on Thursday and he will take over on 13 July, assuming it is rubber-stamped by the FA Council.

Bernstein, forced to stand down at 70 after failing to persuade the FA Council to rewrite its rules, has been a calm hand on the tiller in the wake of the cataclysmic failure of the 2018 World Cup bid and the departure of the England manager, Fabio Capello, in the midst of a racism controversy involving the then captain of the national side, John Terry.

Unlike many of his predecessors Dyke benefits from not taking over in a time of crisis. But the former LWT managing director will be expected to make further progress on reforming the FA, under scrutiny from government, and has also promised to make the development of homegrown players a priority in the wake of the opening of the £105m national football centre in St George's Park.

"I do see one of the most important tasks for the FA is, over time, to make thoughtful changes which will benefit the England team," said Dyke, who will stand down from his role as Brentford chairman at the end of the season.

"The FA have made a great start by rebuilding Wembley and developing great facilities at St George's Park but it is essential that the FA finds a way to ensure that more talented young English footballers are given their chance in the professional game at the highest level."

As part of a government process to overhaul football governance, the FA last year formally relinquished control of large areas of the professional game in a move that was subsequently criticised by the culture, media and sport select committee. However Dyke, a former Manchester United director for two years in the late 1990s, hinted he wanted the FA to play more of a role in monitoring the financial regulation of clubs.

"We have the best known, most successful league in the world with the Premier League and the Football League is so much stronger than it was eight years or nine ago," he said.

"Having said that I am a big supporter of financial fair play which, in both the Premier League and the Football League, will have a big impact and hopefully bring a degree of financial sanity to the professional game."

Roger Devlin, the chair of the nominations committee, said he expected Dyke to "lead from the front", adding: "He has an outstanding understanding of football, strong relationships across the industry and government, while retaining a great empathy for the game."

Clive Efford, shadow sports minister, said he hoped Dyke would be "a strong voice for the grassroots of the game … at a time when football is receiving unprecedented levels of income from the sale of Premier League broadcast rights."