Kathmandu, March 15:

The National Sports Council (NSC) is planning to organise the opening and closing ceremonies

of the fifth National Games under floodlights at the Dasharath Stadium.

The NSC technicians today successfully tested the conditions of the floodlights and the electronic scoreboard. “The NSC has directed us to make the floodlights and the scoreboard ready for the Games,” said Engineer Manoj Acharya. As the fireworks are not seen well in day lights, the NSC has planned the opening and closing ceremonies under lights. “We will use 25 per cent of lights from each of the four poles for the ceremonies,” said Acharya.

The floodlights will be used during the National Games, while the scoreboard is being maintained for the AFC Challenge Cup football tournament qualifying matches to be held here from March 26-30.

“We have been maintaining the lights and scoreboard for the last 15 days,” said electrician Bidur Bhattarai. “We have replaced some of the lights and we need to replace some more,” he said. Bhattarai also informed that the All Nepal Football Association President Ganesh Thapa had requested maintainence for emergency use during the Challenge Cup qualifiers.

Nepal is hosting the Group C qualifying matches of the AFC Challenge Cup. Nepal are drawn against Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Palestine. Nepal will play Palestine on March 26, before taking on Kyrgyzstan two days later. The hosts will take on Afghanistan on March 30. The floodlights and scoreboard were last used during the first AFC President’s Cup in 2005.

Meanwhile, the central committee meeting of the fifth National Games today decided to resume the regional tournaments from March 19. The selection tournaments — originally scheduled for March 13-16 — were postponed indefinitely due to the adverse situtation of the country, said the NSC in a release.

The meeting, chaired by committee president and NSC Member Secretary Jeevan Ram Shrestha, decided to hold the tournaments from March 19 with new draws. The tournaments will be held as per the draw released earlier, the NSC release added.