Ann Francke, head of the Chartered Management Institute, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme talking about football and cricket at work is exclusionary. She said: “A lot of women, in particular, feel left out. They don’t follow those sports and they don’t like either being forced to talk about them or not being included.

“I have nothing against sports enthusiasts or cricket fans – that’s great.

“But the issue is many people aren’t cricket fans.”

Ms Francke also suggested that discussion of sports in the workplace can lead to laddish behaviour and poor workplace culture.

She expressed that discussion of VAR and other football matters could alienate women in the workplace.

She added: “It’s a gateway to more laddish behaviour and – if it just goes unchecked – it’s a signal of a more laddish culture.

“It’s very easy for it to escalate from VAR talk and chat to slapping each other on the back and talking about their conquests at the weekend.”

Ms Francke was keen to state she did not think talking about sport should be banned it its entirety, but instead should not be so prominent within the workplace.

However, many seemed to disagree with the statements made by Ms Francke.

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Sports journalist Jacqui Oatley contributed to the Today programme discussion.

She said: “If you ban football chat or banter of any description, then all you’re going to do is alienate the people who actually want to communicate with each other.

“It would be so, so negative to tell people not to talk about sport because girls don’t like it, or women don’t like it.

“That’s far more divisive.”

Ms Oatley instead suggested that sport should be included in an inclusive way.

She said everyone in the workplace needed to be aware if someone was “blankly staring into space” if a sports related conversation arose.

Football correspondent Melissa Reddy took to Twitter, echoing Ms Oatley’s comments.

She said: “Bin these nonsense stereotypes, along with the notion that females aren’t interested in sport.”

Former Sport, Civil Society and Loneliness Minister, Tracey Crouch, tweeted a picture of her office, complete with a variety of sports memorabilia.

She said: “What a load of nonsense. All welcome to pop in for sports chat in this woman’s office.”

A wide range of social media users dubbed Ms Francke’s comments as “discriminatory”, “based on outdated assumptions” and “wrong”.

Twitter user Katie Jeavons said: “Not all females hate sport, don’t try and speak for us all! What happened to encouraging and promoting sport that includes females?”

Stephen Walters suggested that if sports chat was banned, then it could also lead to discussion on Love Island and other reality TV also being given the boot, as many people do not like these sort of conversations either.

Some even sarcastically called for “banning all chat” in response.

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