Marylebone Cricket Club - Controversies

Controversies

The club's members persistently refused to allow female membership well into the 1990s, with club ballots on the change unable to attract the two-thirds majority amongst the membership required for implementation. A 70% majority of members eventually voted to allow female membership in September 1998, so ending 212 years of male exclusivity. Up until this time the Queen, as the club's patron, was the only woman (other than domestic staff) permitted to enter the Pavilion during play. Later five women were invited to join as playing members.

Further controversy occurred in 2005 when the club was criticised (including by a few of its own members) for siding with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) over the latter's decision to award television rights for Test cricket to British Sky Broadcasting, thus removing Test cricket from terrestrial television. The Secretary & Chief Executive of MCC at the time, Roger Knight, represented the club on the board of the ECB and was party to this controversial and much criticised decision. Test cricket had been shown free to viewers on British television for more than half a century.

Another controversy was MCC's decision to allow members and other spectators to continue to bring limited amounts of alcoholic drinks into the ground at all matches. This decision challenged the ICC, which was attempting to implement a ban on this practice at all international matches around the world. MCC has opted to write to the ICC on an annual basis to seek permission for members and spectators to import alcohol into Lord's Cricket Ground. No other Ground Authority has thought it necessary to seek permission from the ICC for their members and spectators to import alcohol into their cricket ground, there being money to be made out of selling alcohol themselves.

Given its heritage, MCC continues to participate in the administration of English cricket, and in 2010 offered Lord's as a neutral venue for Pakistan to stage a "home" Test match, as scheduled by the ICC, versus Australia; although the outcome of that game proved controversial the club's initial offering was made with the intention that Pakistan, whose terrorist-stricken country had rendered it a no-go area for international cricket, could remain within the international cricketing fold. The Secretary & Chief Executive of the club has a place on the administrative board of the England and Wales Cricket Board and it is reported that Keith Bradshaw (the outgoing Secretary & Chief Executive) may have been influential in the removal from office of England Coach Duncan Fletcher in April 2007.