Lalitpur, September 25

Karma Tshiring Sherpa today filed the candidacy for the post of All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) president with the agendas of cleaning up the irregularities and establish system to bring revolution in Nepali football.

A delegation of around 50 people from football fraternity accompanied Tshiring and vice-president candidate from his panel, Deepak Khati as the duo submitted their nomination papers at the election committee on the last day. According to the committee, Sherpa and ANFA acting President Narendra Lal Shrestha are the two candidates for the post of president, while Khati, former national team skipper Upendra Man Singh and ANFA deputy General Secretary Mani Kunwar are set to fight for the one vice-president post. Former Vice-president of ANFA Tashi Ghale withdrew from the race of president’s election, while another probable contestant Nepal Police AIG Bigyan Raj Sharma did not even collect the nomination papers.

The ANFA is holding the general assembly on October 24 to elect the president and vice-president. The president’s post is vacant since November last year after FIFA Ethics Committee banned Ganesh Thapa for 10 years after he was found to be involved in corruption and other charges related to disciplines, while Narendra Lal Shrestha was nominated as the vice-president following the death of the then acting president Lalit Krishna Shrestha in March last year. The ANFA executive committee announced the elections date after Asian Football Confederation threatened of forming normalisation committee. The AFC and FIFA have not released the annual grants and development budget citing bad governance at the ANFA.

Sherpa, who led the movement against Thapa for around two years to unseat him with accusations of irregularities and corruption, said his team’s agendas included transparency in the ANFA along with development of football from grassroots level. “If I am elected as the president, my first duty will be to create a transparent system in financial, administrative and policy departments. And I think we can do that within the first six months,” said Sherpa. “Secondly, we will begin the development of football from grassroots level apart from infrastructural development and strengthening of the district FAs and clubs.”

Sherpa said the second chapter of the movement began following the announcement of the elections. “We fought against irregularities and governance within ANFA in the first chapter. Now we have come to the second mode of our movement and that will be decided on October 24. The football fraternity throughout the country is excited and this is the time to establish the agendas that we raised during the movement,” he added.

The candidate of vice-president, Khati said his team was committed to work for the development of the sport by building a certain system. “We believe in team work rather than working individually and we are committed to working with honesty to achieve the goal,” he said. Sherpa and Khati filed the nomination papers with the support from 20 district FAs and seven clubs.

Honorary Vice-president of ANFA Santosh Baniya, former national team head coach Krishna Thapa, Lamjung FA President Bishwo Paudel, Jawalakhel Youth Club President Thulo Bhai KC, former women’s national team captain Manju Shrestha and Kiran Rai urged the representatives of districts, clubs and committees to support Tshiring and Khati in their election campaign.