The new All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) leadership appears to violate the basic theme—good governance—it said it fought for while bringing down the long reign of Ganesh Thapa.

Since winning the May 5 election, the Karma Tshering Sherpa-led ANFA had promised transparency and good governance. But the recent incident of sending two of its vice presidents Krishna Thapa and Upendra Man Singh to attend the World Cup football conference in London only gives impression of favouritism. The conference was meant to be attended by the national team coach and technical director. ANFA completely ignored Bal Gopal Maharjan, the current interim head coach, and Japanese national Chiaki Takeda, the technical director for the FIFA conference.

Maharjan had replaced Gyotoku Koji of Japan on August 22. ANFA President Karma Tshering Sherpa, who was due to attend the Best FIFA Football Award, had led the three-member Nepali delegation to London. Coaches and technical directors of 200 member associations took part in the FIFA Football Conference in London on Sunday, the first time FIFA had invited the coaches and technical experts of all member associations at a single post-FIFA World Cup football conference.

Nabin Pandey, the international relation chief of ANFA, said Maharjan was not the head coach while they got the FIFA invitation. “When we got the invitation Koji was the head coach and Takeda the technical director. But their stay in office was uncertain so we decided to send Singh and Thapa instead. Both are also technical manpower and have held the responsibility of coaches in the past,” argued Pandey.

ANFA General Secretary Indra Man Tuladhar does not see anything wrong in sending Thapa and Singh to the conference since they were both technical manpowers. “Thapa is the chief of ANFA technical committee and Singh the member. We were in the state of confusion regarding head coach due to visa issues of Koji,” said Tuladhar.

“They were the best option while the confusion over the head coach was going on,” said Tuladhar who was one of the strong advocates of transparency and good governance in the lead up to the ANFA election.

Former vice president Kunwar alleges irregularities in election

Former senior vice president of All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) Mani Kunwar, a close aide to disgraced former president Ganesh Thapa, on Monday made serious allegations on recently held election of the football governing body.

Karma Tshering Sherpa was elected as the ANFA president on May 5 effectively ending the more than two-decade long reign of Thapa and his allies. Kunwar, who only pulled out of the presidential race a day before the election, alleged Tshering faction of influencing the vote through illegal means.

Kunwar, also the vice president of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF), is the brother-in-law of former president Thapa. Thapa was banned from all football activities for 10 years on November 2015 by FIFA on corruption charges. Candidates and district officials close to the Kunwar-faction had even filed writ at the Kathmandu District Court demanding the postponement of election on May 2. The election, however, went ahead on schedule after the court deemed it inappropriate having deferred it four times already on similar pretexts.

Sherpa-faction won all 17 positions by comfortable margins. Kunwar claimed that he pulled out of the election knowing that it was influenced by ‘money’. “Now I have gathered proofs of corruption and financial irregularities and have notified it to FIFA and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on August 8,” said Kunwar at a press meet without producing any such proofs. “I cannot produce it right now as it may affect the investigation,” added Kunwar. Kunwar even pointed out at Sherpa, vice president Pankaj Nembang and international relation chief Nabin Pandey as the key figures involved in such “illegal dealing”.

Kunwar also blamed Sherpa-faction of threatening election committee members with life as well as influencing voters with foreign tours and bribery. (PR)