Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, April 1:

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) today decided to allot Kathmandu the first AFC president’s Cup Football Tournament scheduled to held from May 4-14.

The AFC had decided to hold the tournament in Kathmandu in December, but concerns were raised when foreign media reported negatively after the February 1and then Pakistan submitted the bid to host the tournament.

The AFC sent a two-member inspection team of Indran Rasasingam of Malaysia and Imtiaz Rehman of Pakistan to asses the security situation in Kathmandu on March 29. The team had visited Karachi (Pakistan) before arriving in Kathmandu.

“AFC gave the ‘go ahead’ after reviewing the report submitted by the team,” said ANFA president Ganesh Thapa quoting AFC president Mohammad Bin Hammam today.

“The AFC has asked for some extra facilities, of which some have already been completed or are on verge of completion,” said Thapa, who is also the chairman of the AFC President’s Cup organising committee.

The two-member team had met Minister for Education and Sports R K Mainali, IGP Shyam Bhakta Thapa, AIG of Armed Police Force (APF) Rabi Raj Thapa, and member secretary of National Sports Council Kishor Bahadur Singh. After inspecting Dasharath Stadium and other practice venues, the AFC inspector Rasasingham had said that the AFC was in favour of Kathmandu getting the tournament from the very beginning.

The AFC wants two matches to be played everyday, and they were against the 1pm kick-off, which means one match would have to be played under floodlights. The floodlights at Dasharath Stadium is currently not functioning.

“The (Education and Sports) ministry and the (National Sports) Council have assured us of getting the floodlights in working order,”

said Ganesh Thapa.

The national league champions of the ‘C’ category countries of Asia will take part in the tournament. Three Star Club, which won the Martyrs’ Memorial National League, will represent Nepal in the first such high-profile tournament.

Other participants are Transport United of Bhutan, Regar TadAZg of Tajikistan, Tai Power Company of Chinese Taipei, Blue Star Sports Club of Sri Lanka, WAPDA of Pakistan, Dordoi Dynamo of Kyrgyzstan and Hello United of Cambodia.

The winner will get $50,000 while the runners-up will walk away with $25,000. The prize money was reduced to half after AFC Finance Committee declined to fund the said amount. As per the earlier provisions, $25,000 each were alotted for the losing semi-finalists, and $15,000 for all the participating nations for preparations.

“I have requested the AFC to provide some amount for training to Three Star Club and Hamman’s response has been positive,” said Thapa.