The Marylebone Cricket Club is consulting its members on a range of schemes designed to accelerate women’s admission to its ranks, according to reports.
Women currently account for a mere 3.2 per cent of the institution’s membership — a figure the club regards as woefully inadequate nearly three decades after it first opened its doors to female members in 1998.
The problem, in essence, is one of time. Gaining full membership of the 239-year-old club can require a wait of up to 30 years, meaning the gender imbalance has shifted only glacially since women became eligible.
The consultation, which is due to close on Friday, sets out several proposals aimed at redressing this disparity — though the club’s own legal advisers have raised serious concerns about whether the plans would survive scrutiny under discrimination law.
The MCC are drawing up plans to allow women to skip the potentially 30-year wait to join their membership
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Among the most striking proposals is a plan to split new admissions equally between men and women — despite the fact that female candidates represent just 12 per cent of those on the waiting list.
According to the consultation document, such a measure would push the overall queue to 37 years, with male applicants facing longer waits whilst their female counterparts would see theirs shortened considerably.
Men displaced further down the list might be offered “improved benefits” as a consolation, potentially including a form of associate membership granting restricted access to the ground on certain match days.
Perhaps most remarkably, the document also floats the possibility of seeking a private bill from Parliament — a rarely used legislative mechanism historically associated with Victorian-era infrastructure projects — which would effectively grant the MCC a bespoke exemption from the Equality Act 2010, permitting it to treat male and female candidates differently.
The club’s own lawyers have flagged significant legal risks with the proposals. The consultation document cautioned that any initiative granting female candidates preferential treatment over their male counterparts would likely constitute positive action — rendering it unlawful under existing discrimination legislation.
A general view of England players during a nets session at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London | PA
This is not merely a theoretical concern. In 2006, an Australian court struck down a comparable scheme operated by Melbourne Cricket Club, which had similarly attempted to allow women to leapfrog men on its membership waiting list. The court ruled the arrangement amounted to unlawful discrimination against male applicants.
It is this legal vulnerability that has prompted some members to lobby for the private bill route, which would effectively place the MCC beyond the reach of the Equality Act. The consultation document acknowledged that such a step could be considered should all other legal avenues prove fruitless.
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economy spokesman, has demanded that the MCC scrap the proposals entirely. He argued that the club’s diversity drive runs contrary to the sport’s founding principles.
“Fair play is the very essence of cricket,” he said. “That the home of cricket believes that it should be exempted from laws against discrimination so that it can put men at the back of the queue shows just how mad parts of this country have become.”
Reform has characterised the initiative as an affront to the spirit of the game itself, insisting that seeking special legal dispensation to disadvantage male applicants makes a mockery of the equality framework Parliament established for the entire country.
The intervention adds a political dimension to what had been an internal club matter, with Jenrick’s remarks framing the MCC’s ambitions as symptomatic of a broader institutional overreach in the name of diversity.
Robert Lawson, the MCC’s chief executive and secretary, told The Telegraph he had been encouraged by the quality of feedback received thus far.
“The point of the consultation paper is to illustrate the impact of various strategies so that Members can give us their informed opinion,” he said.
He added that once the consultation window closes, the club would “carefully review all perspectives provided” alongside legal counsel before putting any formal proposals to members for approval.
On the contentious question of a private bill, Lawson sought to temper expectations. “We are not looking to pursue a private bill but are aware it’s an option,” he said, noting that the idea had originated with certain members and was included in the document simply to acknowledge that fact.
Ultimately, he stressed, the membership itself would have the final say on whichever path the club takes.
