Review to recommend free-to-air Ashes

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The recommendations on the 'Crown Jewels' of British sport will be published following an inquiry headed by David Davies, the former executive director of the Football Association.

As well as the Ashes, it is understood his report will also recommend that football's World Cup and European Championship qualifiers involving home nations be listed events, plus the Wimbledon tennis championships and golf's Open championship.

The Government are not obliged to follow the recommendations and the England and Wales Cricket Board will argue vociferously that the financial impact would be devastating for the sport which has a £300million deal with Sky.

Cricket chiefs are particularly angry given that the BBC have not bid for any packages of live English cricket since 1998.

The Scottish Football Association, meanwhile, claim they will lose something in the region of £12million if their cup final is included.

It is also understood that horse racing's Derby and rugby league's Challenge Cup final are recommended to be axed as listed events.

The new proposals have been drawn up after 10 months of hearings, research and input from overseas. The panel's conclusions will be published by the DCMS on Friday and they are expected to be followed by a 12-week period of consultation.

But the culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, and the sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, who will ultimately decide whether to accept the panel's recommendations, will struggle to get any changes on to the statute book ahead of next year's general election.

The review was ordered in December 2008 by Andy Burnham, then the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, who was keen to ensure that the top major sporting events such as the Olympics were kept on terrestrial television. Burnham accepted, however, that the sale of sports rights to broadcasters such as Sky could lead to a positive impact for sports.