Lalitpur, January 1

The All Nepal Football Association and Nepal Sports and Events Management today reached an agreement to organise the franchise-based Nepal Super League and School League.

ANFA President Karma Tsering Sherpa and NSEM President Nirvana Chaudhary exchanged the memorandum of understanding amidst a signing ceremony. As per the deal, NSEM will take care of the sponsors, names of the participating teams and preparations for the NSL, while ANFA will be responsible of technical aspects of the tournaments.

Chaudhary said the main objective of the leagues was youth development through sports. “As a youth of this country, we want the overall development of youths and that can be done only through sports,” he said. “This is just a beginning and we are thankful to ANFA for coming up with such a clear vision. We are extremely delighted to partner with ANFA for the development of football,” added Chaudhary.

“We have agreed in principal to organise the two new leagues,” said ANFA President Sherpa. “We will sit together and finalise other details including the financial terms and conditions,” he added. “We signed the MoU today as we wanted to announce a new project on a New Year day,” he added.

A total of seven provincial teams will take part in the NSL and ANFA will distribute the 140 players selected from the Pulsar Martyrs Memorial A Division League. “We will organise the tournament in April-May and we have prepared concrete plans to organise the league,” Sherpa added.

He also lauded the NSEM as a true friend of football. “We have joined hands with NSEM and we believe it is the true partner which can bring difference in Nepali football,” Sherpa said.

Regarding the School League, Sherpa said the main objective of the project was to develop football by strengthening grassroots and youth. “We all know football cannot be developed without strengthening grassroots and youth level. We have a target of organising such leagues in 11 cities involving 300 schools and the event will run for about 10 months starting in May,” he added. “We believe the league will produce thousands of players which will help in picking up a strong national team,” said Sherpa.