KATHMANDU: Gita Rana, president of Sports for All-Nepal, today announced her candidacy for the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) President post in the forthcoming elections to be held in September.

“As wished by many friends in football fraternity, I announce to contest the elections for the ANFA President,” announced Rana at a press meet. Rana, who showed dissatisfaction with the new ANFA bylaws, said she wanted to revamp the sport and take it to new heights. “The new bylaws is incomplete. It has given all the powers to the president and it leads to autocracy,” she accused. She also raised questions over those who passed the bylaws at a Special General Assembly in Chitwan. “I could not understand how the assembly members passed the bylaws, which is full of mistakes,” she said.

Rana, who ran the parallel ANFA committee backed by the government a decade earlier, was sacked by the National Sports Council accusing her incompetent for the position five years later. Ganesh Thapa, who has been at the helm of the football governing body of the nation for more than a decade now, is expected to be her main rival.

“As no one has come forward in a decade to challenge him (Thapa), I think he will be the main rival in the elections,” said Rana, who is also the principal of Galaxy Public School, at a press conference organised to announce the candidacy.

Asked about the purpose of reappearing in football after five years, Rana said she was looking forward to contest the ANFA elections under the new bylaws. “I invested so many years of my life in football and I think time has come to fight for the post now,” she said.

As per the ANFA bylaws,

one should come to the general assembly as a representative from a club or district FA. “I will decide it later from where to represent. As so many districts have offered me to represent them, I can choose anyone,” she added.