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Companies should crack down on workplace chat about football and cricket amid fears it excludes women, a top management body has warned.Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, said sporting banter could divide offices and pave the way for more laddish behaviour. Read more: 'Intruder' Fifa is a threat to European club football, says Spanish league boss Javier Tebas"A lot of women, in particular, feel left out," she told the BBC's Today programme. "They don't follow those sports and they don't like either being forced to talk about them or not being included."In addition, Francke warned that sporting squabbles about topics such as video assistant refereeing (VAR) could escalate into more unsavoury subjects."It's a gateway to more laddish behaviour and - if it just goes unchecked - it's a signal of a more laddish culture," she said."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."Get the news as it happens by following City A.M. on Twitter. Despite her concerns, the management guru said she had nothing against sports enthusiasts and that she did not think gabble about games should be banned.Instead, she argued that good manners should merely moderate conversation to make sure everyone felt comfortable.However, sports journalist Jacqui Oatley branded the proposed crackdown a "terrible idea", saying it would prevent people from communicating with each other in the workplace. Read more: How Tottenham overtook Chelsea and Arsenal to become London's richest football club"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," she told the Today programme.Oatley said
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