Kathmandu, August 2

For the first time in country’s sports history, there will be classification of players — national and international.

The National Sports Development Bill, which was amended by the parliamentary Legislation Management Committee and passed by the National Assembly on Thursday, has classified athletes mainly in two categories. Players who win medals in the official tournaments within the country have been kept in national players category, while the athletes with medals in official international tournaments fall into international players category.

The NA will send the bill to Lower House, the House of Representatives, for approval. If the HoR passes the bill without any amendment, the athletes need to fulfil certain criteria to be national or international players. According to the bill, to be listed in international players’ category, an athlete should have won at least one medal in official international tournaments representing the country.

In the absence of the clear criteria, the players who represented the country in international tournaments were called as international players. As per the new bill, representing the country in Olympic Games, Asian Games and South Asian Games will not be enough for the athletes to be listed in international players’ category.

According to the bill, those who represent in international tournaments and return empty handed will be listed in national players’ list if they have won at least one medal in official national tournaments conducted by the National Sports Council.

Nepal National and International Players Association President Deepak Shrestha hoped the provisions in the bill would end chaos.

“There is a real chaos in sports fraternity as all the players who have participated in any kind of international tournament have been claiming themselves as international players,” said Shrestha, the two-time South Asian Federation Games gold medallist. “The players themselves are confused about their status and the classification of athletes in the bill was necessary,” he added. Shrestha said the bill had come up with decent provisions to classify the athletes as per their contribution to the country.

Senior athletics coach Sushil Narsingh Rana said the classification would guide sports towards right direction. “Now, the players who participate in international tournaments through wild cards can not identify themselves as international players. It will motive players to work hard and win at least one medal to fall into that category,” he added.

Interestingly, the bill which was proposed by the government earlier, didn’t include any definition about the players.