CITY Building has ordered a stop to corporate hospitality at the all-male St Andrew's Sporting Club.
The arm's-length external organisation, or Aleo, said it had dropped the boxing club for business reasons.
However, the move comes after months of intense questioning on the issue from SNP councillor Graeme Hendry, who is highly critical of public money going to exclusive gentlemen's clubs.
City Building confirmed it bought £1200 tables at St Andrew's bouts to entertain staff and associates on three occasions last year.
However, it said the events - to which it could not routinely invite female employees or business partners - had previously been seen as a big opportunity to network.
A spokesman said: "City Building continually reviews all strands of our marketing strategy and has decided that due to the reducing benefits of attending the St Andrew's Sporting Club, we will not be attending these events in the foreseeable future."
The Aleo is wholly owned by Glasgow City Council and run by a board of councillors chaired by Labour's Paul Carey.
Chief executive Graham Paterson, in correspondence with Mr Hendry, said the board had approved its hospitality at St Andrew's.
Mr Hendry said: "The decision by Mr Carey to allow the use of this club for hospitality is baffling when you consider it only allows males. This is clearly not appropriate for a company which has a diverse and inclusive workforce.
"Mr Carey should tell us if he knew it didn't allow female members and how this fits with the company's image. I am pleased that my questioning has led to them stopping the use of this kind of hospitality."
City Building has previously highlighted its ability to attract women to traditional male construction roles and has female managers who would be expected to attend corporate hospitality events.
St Andrew's has been a Glasgow institution since it hosted the all-Scottish British lightweight title bout between Jim Watt and Ken Buchanan in 1973. It now runs a dozen events a year from the Radisson Blu, including two balls open to women.
Owner Tommy Gilmour said: "It's a diabolical liberty to use a legitimate business that pays its taxes and has raised half a million for charity to attack your political opponents.
"We have had events when women were allowed in but they would barely have filled a table out of 400 people. There are women who like to come and get dressed up but I'm not sure the boxing itself does much for them."
david.leask@eveningtimes.co.uk
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article