Interviews to decide which of the 18 first-class counties will host professional women’s teams from 2025 will begin next week at Lord’s and will involve Kelly Simmons, former director of the women’s professional game at the Football Assocation, and Maggie Murphy, the chief executive of Lewes FC, the Guardian can reveal.

The tender process to host one of the eight new professional “Tier 1” women’s teams closed on 11 March. Applications will now be judged by a panel made up of Ebony Rainford-Brent and Neil Snowball from the England and Wales Cricket Board, plus Murphy and Simmons. Bringing in external people to judge bids is highly unusual for the ECB, but it is felt that involving two heavyweights in women’s football will add enhanced scrutiny and credibility to the process. Lewes are the only football club in the world to offer equal pay to men and women players.

The interviews will take place on 21, 22 and 25 March and will require counties to present their bids to the evaluation anel, Dragons’ Den-style, before facing a 45-minute Q&A with the panel.

Of the 18 first-class counties, 16 are thought to have submitted bids, with Derbyshire and Worcestershire opting out for financial reasons. Counties have already had to answer a series of 32 exacting questions, including laying out where the women’s team would sit in their “hierarchy of priorities”, how they will make women’s teams “feel welcome and included”, and how they will “ensure a clear voice [for the women’s team] within … key decision-making processes”.

They have also had to state how many professional contracts they would offer to women players between 2025 and 2028, how they would create equitable access to high-quality training facilities for women and girls, and where the women’s senior team would play their home matches.

This latter point is a potential bone of contention. The evaluation panel will no doubt expect equal access for women’s teams to grounds such as The Oval and Lord’s, but the Guardian understands that some counties intend for the women to play their matches on club and school pitches, claiming that existing county grounds are already at capacity. This could be a key sticking point in the interviews.

Counties will also be asked to expand on their proposed women’s staffing structures, and to outline their plans for direct investment in women’s cricket, to supplement the £1.3m annual investment that the ECB will provide.

The process is likely to lead to disappointment for several big-hitting counties. Surrey and Kent, for example, are fighting it out to win the right to host the current South East Stars side. Meanwhile Durham have gone all-out in their attempt to persuade the ECB to relocate the Northern Diamonds away from Headingley. Last week, they released a glossy-looking “launch” video featuring Ben Stokes and Paul Collingwood, who both took time out of England’s tour of India to lend their support to the bid.