KATHMANDU, Aug 17: All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) has decided to hold election of its president and a vice president on October 24 in the capital.
The post of president and vice president had remained vacant in the football governing body of Nepal since last year. ANFA had been without a president after FIFA, the international football governing body, slapped a 10-year ban on its long serving president Ganesh Thapa on November 16 last year for misconduct while at the helm of ANFA. Similarly, the position of vice president had been vacant since June 12 last year after its senior vice president Lalit Krishna Shrestha was electrocuted at his home.
Two days after ban on Thapa, ANFA had nominated its senior Vice President Narendra Shrestha as its acting president. A meeting of ANFA held on Tuesday decided the date for the election.
Earlier in May, FIFA had written to the ANFA asking it to hold presidential election to replace disgraced Thapa. According to a statement issued by ANFA, the decision to hold the election will be corresponded with FIFA and AFC for guidelines.
Banned Thapa was elected as ANFA president for the sixth time on October 24, 2013 for a four-year tenure. This means the newly elected president and vice president will have tenure of about 14 months.
Meanwhile, the executive committee meeting has also decided to lift ban on Himalayan Sherpa Club and Friends Club. Four top-tier clubs including Himalayan Sherpa and Friends Club were banned by ANFA on August 2014. The ban on two other clubs -Saraswati and Machhindra - were lifted a year later while ban on remaining clubs were intact. The meeting under presidency of then President Thapa had imposed ban on those clubs after they publicly questioned transparency of ANFA and filed complaints against Thapa alleging him of corruption and misconduct.
Meanwhile, ANFA also formed appeal and election committees comprising of five members each. The election committee comprises of ANFA legal advisor Sujit KC, advocates Sagar KC and Suman Kumar KC and, one member from National Sports Council and Amar Singh Shah, former member of ANFA disciplinary committee. Similarly, the appeal committee comprises of advocates Gopal Krishna Ghimire, Buddhi Katuwal, Ganga Sagar Khatri, Suresh Kumar Paudel and Rajesh Maharjan.
The meeting has also decided to provide grant of Rs 500,000 and Rs 1 million to any club of country competing in tournaments organized by AFC within South Asia and outside South Asia respectively. As per the decision, Three Star, which left for Mongolia on Tuesday to compete in the AFC Cup play-off qualifiers, will get Rs 1 million as assistance from ANFA.
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