The All Nepal Football Association (Anfa) on Monday initiated process to hold election of Makwanpur District Football Association (FA), one of the two disputed district associations, that forced the football governing body to call off its executive body elections scheduled for March 28.

“We have directed the Makwanpur FA to start election process and they need to finish it within 12 days as per the statute,” said Anfa president Narendra Shrestha. “Makawanpur controversy will come to an end once the election is over.”  Anfa had failed to hold the election of Bhaktapur and Makawanpur districts among its 45 member associations. 

Bhaktapur District Football Association president Gautam Sukhaju and Makwanpur District Football Association vice-president Manish Shrestha had filed a writ petition at the Patan High Court accusing Anfa of violating their rights to participate in the election. The High Court on Thursday had issued an interim order to put the election process on hold, calling both parties for talks within 15 days.

After the latest turn of the events, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) demanded the Anfa to go ahead with the elections as it has already been postponed for thrice. “We have informed AFC of the legal obligation to obey the court order,” said Anfa president Narendra Shrestha adding that they are yet to receive the reply. AFC representative Ravi Kumar is already in Kathmandu to take stalks of the matter. “We are in talks with him to clarify our current position,” said Shrestha.

Makwanpur FA election scheduled for January 19 was dragged into controversy after central representative Mani Kunwar, the senior vice president of Anfa, was blamed of walking out midway through the election process. Though the general assembly elected Tikaram Lama as Makawanpur president, Anfa did not legitimate him. Bhaktapur FA was ineligible to hold its election after the dissatisfied clubs of Bhaktapur had gone to district court claiming that the eligible voters were excluded from the election process. The district court had asked Bhaktapur FA to stay election process. Later, Bhaktapur DFA also filed case against Anfa at the Patan High Court.

Kunwar, one of the two presidential candidates of Anfa is blamed to have walked away from the election process of Makwanpur FA sensing that faction loyal to him will lose the election. Kunwar is backed by the disgraced former Anfa president Ganesh Thapa. The other faction is led by former vice-president Karma Chhiring Sherpa. The Anfa general assembly have 77 votes—one each from 45 district FAs and one each from 14 ‘A’ division clubs. The ‘B’ Division clubs have nine and ‘C’ division five votes while four committees—players, coaches, referee and women commission—will have one vote each.