Kingdom Star begin Coca-Cola Cup with win

Lalitpur, May 22

Kingdom Star began the Coca-Cola Cup Inter-school Football Tournament campaign with a victory here at the ANFA Complex grounds on Sunday.

In the inaugural match of the tournament, Kingdom Star thrashed Standard Co-ed 5-0 riding on a hat-trick from Saurav KC. Bishal Ghising and Sujan Lama scored a goal each for the winners.

Earlier, ANFA Acting President Narendra Shrestha, Secretary at the Ministry of Youth and Sports Laxman  Prasad Mainali, Country Sales Manager of Bottlers’ Nepal Rajesh Sharma, and Country Finance Manager of Bottlers’ Nepal Sumit Goyal inaugurated the tournament.

The tournament, which is organised jointly by Coca-Cola Nepal, All Nepal Football Association and Ministry for Youth and Sports, has been divided into three parts — district, regional and national. The district level matches will end on June 16, while the regional tournaments are slated for August 21-31. The national tournament will be played from September 5 to 21.

The district-level tournaments will be held in 43 districts affiliated to ANFA and at least 30 school teams will participate in each district. In all, 112 schools are taking part in the annual tournament, the largest grassroots football event of the country, featuring more than 2,000 students. In the recent past, the Coca-Cola Cup has thrown up talent that has helped Nepal build a strong national team. Players like Bishal Rai, Bikesh Kuthu, Rabin Shrestha, Heman Gurung, Bimal Gharti Magar, Aditya Chaudhary, Ananta Tamang and Anjan Bista have all played in the Coca-Cola Cup in the past.

Top four teams in boys’ section will receive Rs 300,000, Rs 150,000, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, while the women’s category winners will get Rs 200,000, Rs 100,000, Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively. In individual section, the best goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward will also be rewarded. Coca-Cola has also instituted special awards for players and teams who display exemplary sportsmanship throughout the event.