THE latest management wheeze to get workplaces more cohesive and inclusive? Telling bosses to crack down on employees’ sports banter.

Chartered Management Institute head Ann Francke says conversations about football and cricket should be curtailed because they can make women feel left out and unable to contribute, and may also lead men on to talking about their sexual conquests. I don’t know where to start.

The idea that women can’t be sports fans or capable of discussing the transfer window – or that men are so ill-disciplined that dissecting the run rate of out-of-form wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler makes them say inappropriate things about who they slept with at the weekend.

I’m not sure what kind of advert such statements make about the support and services the Chartered Management Institute offers members, but I definitely wouldn’t be clamouring to join in with that outdated world view.