Soccer's soul being challenged by spectacles

Reports suggest FIFA and Coldplay are collaborating on the first ever World Cup Final halftime show.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned (even though I try to see these things through the eyes of my three teenage kid), but I just don’t think this is a good idea for global soccer long-term. Sports evolve, but history proves that no sport’s dominance is guaranteed. Boxing and horse racing were once kings. College football overshadowed the NFL. Baseball was America’s pastime before the NBA surged past it.

I remember when MLS thought cracking the American market meant shootouts, flashy team names, and countdown clocks. It didn’t take long to realize that fans craved the authenticity of global soccer - that hipsters mattered just as much as soccer moms.

Soccer's global passion comes from its working-class roots, ultras culture, fierce derbies, and pure simplicity. Save the halftime shows for the NFL and NBA. Short-term gimmicks might boost engagement, but long-term they chip away at the soul of the game - building its funeral pyre one spectacle at a time.

Soccer clubs are losing focus. It’s time to rein it in!

Watching Aston Villa take on Spurs in the FA Cup on Sunday, I couldn’t help but notice something that’s been gnawing at me for a while. Tottenham were about to be knocked out of the competition after being totally outclassed by the Villans and as Spurs fans started chanted "Levy Out," it became clear that a club’s business success off the pitch means little if it doesn’t translate to trophies. Daniel Levy has transformed Tottenham into a commercial powerhouse, but fans don’t sing about balance sheets—they sing about silverware.

The problem is, Tottenham’s business model has set a precedent. Other clubs, seeing the revenue streams Spurs have unlocked, are now scrambling to follow suit. Less than 24 hours after the match, Aston Villa themselves proudly announced a Kendrick Lamar concert at Villa Park in the summer. Their fans celebrated the news as though they had reached a cup final —not because it impacts football directly, but because it means more money, which could (theoretically) be spent on the squad.

This is where I take issue. Clubs should not be forced into becoming entertainment conglomerates to compete. Their core competency is football. Revenue should come from footballing activities—ticket sales, broadcasting, sponsorships, and player development—not music festivals or business conferences. The game is heading down a slippery slope where financial clout, not footballing vision, dictates success.

At some point, there needs to be a hard stop. A salary cap tied to football-related revenues could be a solution, ensuring clubs focus on building teams, not business portfolios. Otherwise, we risk turning soccer clubs into event management firms that just happen to field a team on the weekends.

It’s time to realign priorities. Fans deserve football-first clubs, not corporate juggernauts masquerading as teams.

Disclaimer: This piece was generated by ChatGPT based on my inputs. I wanted to test how well AI could capture my sentiments, and I have to say—I’m pleasantly surprised awestruck by the result. It perfectly encapsulates what I was thinking.

Nepali sports fans are incredible!

 

1M watching!

I was one of the 1 million+ concurrent viewers watching the finals of the SAFF Women's Championship between Nepal and Bangladesh. Tough loss for Nepal, but the game really was not the story. It was the fans!

As expected, Nepal's national stadium, Dasharath Rangashala (yes - where this blog gets its name), was officially packed to capacity at 15,000, with some estimates of an overflow crowd of close to 25,000. Beyond that, there were fan zones setup across the capital and country that attracted tens of thousands of viewers. Then there is the TV viewership - which one sports and media veteran guesstimates at 60% of Nepali households having the game on. This would equate to somewhere around 21 million Nepalis watching the match at home.

A jam packed fan zone in Kathmandu.
Photo: RONB

These are absolutely phenomenal numbers when for example the ongoing MLB baseball World Series between the big market New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers has been getting around 13 to 15 million viewers in the USA - a country ten times the size of Nepal and with infinite times the media, marketing and sports prowess.

In the sports business space, you often read or hear senior executives celebrating a few thousand views of a live stream of a sport event. Nepali fans say, "Hold my milk tea!"

The sports fan frenzy is not a one-off either. Over the summer Nepali fans watched and attended the Men's National Cricket Team at the T20 World Cup in droves, including packing a stadium in Dallas, Texas. In August, the CAVA Women's Volleyball Challenge Cup, which the Nepal Women's National Volleyball Team hosted had over 400 thousand concurrent viewers for the tournament final which involved Nepal. Given that some of these events are lesser regional tournaments the interest level is even more remarkable.

In Nepali sports, often administrators, politicians, officials and sometimes even players go missing (figuratively and literally!) but the fans keep showing up - no matter the sport, tournament, result or gender.

PS - It's what motivates me to keep at it!

Why I do not pay attention to youth national team results

Bangladesh defeat Nepal 4-1
to lift the SAFF U-20 Championship
(photo: SAFF Social Media)

There is lots of sadness, bewilderment and anger across social media on Nepal's 1 - 4 loss to Bangladesh in the finals of the U-20 SAFF Championship.  I am at a point where I do not pay much attention to Nepal's youth teams results. Sure - I want Nepal to win.  However, win or lose we all know the true realities of youth football in Nepal.  While there are some encouraging things happening in the grassroots space, it is bare bones when it comes to organized youth football across the country. A victory in the SAFF U-20 tournament would only have papered over the cracks.

Holding an annual one month long U-18 and U-16 tournament for clubs that completely ignore youth football for the rest of the year or resurrecting the previously failed ANFA Academy model simply does not cut it.  

I actually do not blame ANFA for not doing enough. What I blame them for, both at the central and district levels, is creating endless roadblocks for those that are ready to do something. I'm a firm believer that Nepal's football development has to be led by the private sector. Public institutions are too dysfunctional, incompetent and political to get anything done.

To those who doubt the readiness and commitment of the private sector: as a small example, I have around ten ongoing chats on my WhatsApp with different individuals eager to initiate and self-finance youth football related projects. The passion and interest is undeniably there!

Top flight football in Guatemala

Between all the AFCON and AFC Asian Cup matches online right now, I was able to catch some live football while in Guatemala and viewed the first match of the Liga Guate Clausura at the home stadium of Antigua GFC, the local club of the charming former colonial capital about one hour outside of Guatemala City. Some musings from the game:

• Antigua GFC's mascot is an avocado! --->>
• Quite a few tourists, many who are students at the local Spanish language schools, attended the game. Most of the gringos were gone by halftime
• There was Taco Bell food available inside the stadium. They are one of the team's sponsors. It can thus be definitively said that Antigua GFC has better food at their games than Aston Villa or Arsenal (two Premier League teams whose matches I attended during the Christmas/New Years holidays)
• Turnout was a few hundred people (at most maybe 1,000) and it was a fairly quiet and polite crowd
• Standard of play was probably a little below USL Championship
• There was enough merch on sale to satisfy hardcore supporters and plenty of fans were wearing team swag 
  
  

  

  Photos from the home match of Antigua GFC

Nepal Super League - just keep it going!

Photo courtesy of Nepal Super League Facebook page

Due to travel and time zones, I did not get to catch as much of the second edition of the Nepal Super League (NSL) as I might have hoped. Nonetheless, I received regular updates via social media and from folks on the ground. Here are a few brief takeaways from the recently completed competition:

• NSL is clearly a cut above any other football tournament in Nepal in terms of standard of play and marketing (both league and franchises). It provides a great benchmark for other soccer competitions in the country and contributes greatly to the football ecosystem
  
  
• The NSL needs 3 or 4 more consecutive years of play to clearly embed itself in the football landscape. Continuity is key. Any potential hiatus and it risks becoming another political pawn in Nepali football politics - as it was in the last ANFA elections
  
  
• NSL club franchises must be sustainable. If I am the NSL management, I take learnings from the likes of MLS (USA), ISL (India) and A-League (Australia) - all franchise leagues, and copy their best practices. Minimize costs, scale resources, create exclusivity and provide opportunities to generate revenues
  
  
  
• You can't expect football fans in Kathmandu alone to sustain the NSL. Especially in an area that has so many other entertainment options. Games need to be played outside the Valley and franchises need to be able to tap into additional revenues a local fanbase and a dedicated venue can generate

NSL is on the right track and has been a great boon for domestic football. It has given football fans and observers a peek into the potential of Nepali football.  The main thing now is to just keep it going.

Bhim Thapa

I had the good fortune to work and interact with Bhim Thapa on several occasions, including on a grassroots football coaching program we organized together in Morang district. At the time, grassroots football and coach education was not really appreciated by much of the Nepali football fraternity. I recall people questioning why we would waste our time training junior coaches and very young kids in the villages. Bhim Thapa knew exactly why! 

Farewell dear coach.

Coaching clinic Bhim Thapa and I coordinated in Biratnagar

Bhim Thapa teaching a group of aspiring coaches
from different villages across Morang district

A Division results need to be decided on the pitch instead of off of it

A Division league table from Hamro Khelkud

Nepal's top flight football league experienced yet another chaotic finale with accusations of bias, unfairness, tanking and match-fixing all across the league table.

This is par for the course in Nepali football and primarily due to the competition organizers lacking common sense when developing the league format and competition rules. 

Below are just a few givens when it comes to the A Division every time it is played:

• Due to political mischief many clubs struggle to register foreign players for the start of the season
• Key players depart in the middle of the season for opportunities abroad
• Top clubs will use incremental prize money to buy wins and guarantee their places at the top of the table
• Clubs in and near the relegation zone fix matches to avoid going down

The phrase "the table does not lie" thus does not hold true in Nepal.  Due to some of the above circumstance the final standing is usually not at all indicative of how strong club is but more representative of their political and financial might in getting players registered on time and fixing matches. For this reason a double-round league holds little value in Nepal.

Football officials should instead create a format that allows clubs to fight it out in meaningful end of season matches. Basically playoffs (though there are other little hacks, such as leveling the prize money, than can also help).

After the league stage, take the top 4,6 or 8 teams and let them compete in a single elimination playoff where all teams are incentivized to give it their all. Similarly, take the bottom four teams and have them play a one-off game where the loser gets relegated. With such formats in place, clubs will much less likely fix games or block other teams from registering their players on time (yes! that happens in Nepal) as they will know that eventually the playoff matches will be decisive and engaging in nefarious shenanigans is a waste of their time and money. Let the A Division results be decided on the pitch instead of off of it!

There are no secrets in Nepali football

The other day I was on a very long call with a Nepali football official - let's call him Mr. X. He was going on about how deeply he cared about football and that he was one of the few "nishwartha" (selfless) people involved in the local game. Mr. X claimed he was a giver and not a taker and only had the best interests of Nepali football in his heart. He went on to talk about his decades service to football and listed a litany of his accomplishments - which frankly was not that impressive.

A few hours later I was on another call, this time with a local sports equipment store. I had ordered a bunch of footballs for an academy I am supporting.  I asked the sports equipment store owner for a discount on my purchase and he informed me that he always quotes me the very best rate, because unlike other football officials I don't ask for commission on my purchases. He then went on to give me an example of how one football official keeps asking him for very high margins on kickbacks and commissions thus he had no choice but to inflate his prices by almost 30-40% to them.  The name of that official? You guessed it - it was Mr. X! 

The fact is there are no secrets in Nepali football. Ones movements, meetings, conversations and behaviors are all tracked. Not by the state - North Korea style, but by a very close-knit society where everyone knows everyone and people love to gossip. Whether at weddings and festivals or by hotel managers and store keepers, word gets around and it gets around fast. It therefore really astounds me when Nepali football officials try to paint a false picture of themselves. Who are they trying to fool? Their secrets are out there for all to easily discover.

When I was directing Machhindra FC back in 2013/14, I would sometimes personally go to the Kalimati vegetable market to pick-up ingredients for our team meals. Many other clubs and ANFA also frequented the same market and coincidentally the same stalls. One of the vegetable sellers once showed me a few of the duplicate receipts he was producing for the different football organizations. Let's just say Nepali football players were eating some very expensive meals.

Regional cups sustaining Nepali football both nationally and locally

In the absence of top-level league competitions for the past three years, regional cup competitions such as the Nepalgunj Gold Cup have been crucial in sustaining Nepali football in this period.

Along with its sister tournaments in Pokhara, Dharan, Butwal, Biratnagar, Birtamod, Simara and elsewhere, the Nepalgunj Gold Cup is providing much needed matches and money to football stakeholders including national level players, coaches, referees and clubs whose livelihoods and operations have been severely jeopardized by the shutdown of league competitions.

The regional cups are also a major boon to local football. For fans - they bring celebrated clubs and players and high standard of matches, which are mostly concentrated in Kathmandu, to different corners of the country. For players - they provide a platform to compete against the top talents and clubs in the country. For administrators - it gives them experience in organizing tournaments and looking after the matches, logistics, sponsorship and marketing that come along with it.

Furthermore, if well run, the regional cups can raise quite a bit of revenue which ideally should be ploughed back into local football. For example, Sahara Club Pokhara’s impressive training centre was built on the profits of the Aaha! Gold Cup. Hopefully, the Nepalgunj Gold Cup will eventually create a similar legacy, but for now it is already playing a crucial role in supporting football at the national and local levels.

Leave sports logos to the professionals

Yielding to highly negative backlash from fans and observers, less than 48 hours after historic English football side Leeds United launched their new club badge they scrapped it.

The irony here is that Leeds United actually claims to have consulted 10,000 people in developing the new badge. I don't doubt it for a moment and there is a valuable lesson here -  something as important as the club badge should be left to professionals and not crowd-sourced!

Having a bit of a sports logo fetish, I have seen this play out many times - where clubs leave badge ideas to their fans and ultimately end-up with a total disaster or if lucky something fairly average.

One of the worst examples of logos-gone-wild unfortunately happened to the club that I support - Aston Villa. In the late 2000's they developed their new badge based on a fan survey and the logo turned out to be a total mess. For example they asked something like if supporters preferred "Aston Villa", "Aston Villa FC", "Aston Villa Football Club" or "AVFC" on the club badge. The majority preferred some version of the unique club name but the vote was split three ways among the non-acronym options and AVFC ended up with the highest vote percentage at a mere 30% or so. Thus AVFC made its way onto the badge, an absolute tragedy as one of the most special characteristic of the club is its non traditional name. There are many United's and FC's, but only one Villa! is a popular cry among the club's faithful.

The acronym AVFC was just one of many defects of the crowd-sourced logo. Ask any competent graphic designer and they could identify another dozen flaws with the crest. It's one reason I have refused to purchase a Villa kit for nearly a decade.

The new Villa badge and the recently updated version (right)

A few years later Aston Villa spent GBP 80,000 to alter the faulty badge. It's still pretty poor. Hopefully the club management will do a proper update soon. (UPDATE:  Villa changed their crest in 2023)

On the other hand, despite early criticism from traditionalists, sports organizations like Juventus and Big Ten Conference developed new identities that were masterpieces through collaborations with leading design and branding firms Interbrand and Pentagram respectfully. Amazing the results you can achieve when you hire competence.

Don't expect EPL T20 clone in football

Crowd at EPL finals at TU Ground. Photo courtesy of Udipt Singh Chhetry

By all accounts the Everest Premier League T20 tournament was a grand success. It saw good crowds, a strong stable of sponsors and formidable media interest. Moreover it had buzz. My Facebook timeline would be filled with posts from friends and acquaintances discussing the tournament. Even my buddies, who well know I am not a cricket aficionado, were texting me about the the ongoing action including  the peripheral "cricketainment", as event organizer Aamir Akhtar puts it, around the event.

For sports enthusiasts like myself, the EPL T20  showed that there is the capacity in Nepal to run a well marketed and fan friendly sports event. Hats off to the organizers.

So could we expect something similar in football perhaps?

At the local level tournaments such as the Aaha Gold Cup in Pokhara and the recent Khaptad Gold Cup in Dhangadhi do bring excitement to their localities, but the entertainment quotient is not quite up to par and these competitions lack national appeal. The onus to create something similar to the EPL T20 in football thus lies either with ANFA, the governing body of football in Nepal, or an entrepreneurial person or two from the private sector.

ANFA has failed to organize a top level league for the past 3 years, so certainly there is little hope in expecting them to do anything anytime soon. That then leaves the private sector.

Unfortunately, unlike its cricket brethren Cricket Association Nepal (CAN) that is dysfunctional, toothless, and currently suspended, ANFA is only dysfunctional. Toothless and suspended it is not and there lies the challenge.

Through its former president Ganesh Thapa, who essentially governs the national body by proxy and through family members embedded in the organization, ANFA maintains strong political links domestically which it continues to exploit to implement its nefarious modus operandi. For the past 25 years ANFA's M-O has essentially been to negatively disrupt any football initiatives that are not directly organized by itself. It is a case of "afoo pani nagarni, aroo lai pani garna nadini" (Not doing it yourself and not letting anyone else do it either).

A few of the bright spots in local football such as the proliferation of futsal courts is due its rapid rise blindsiding the football authorities or else futsal's growth may have also been derailed.

Ultimately, one can expect that any attempt to hire a ground, secure sponsors and develop media partnerships for an EPL T20 style football league being sabotaged by ANFA and its nexus, thus is the sad reality of football in Nepal. 

Nepalgunj Gold Cup shows glimpse of Nepal's football potential

I wrote the following for the Nepalgunj Gold Cup post-tournament report:

The Nepalgunj Gold Cup is another example of Nepal's football potential. Located in a region of the country where football lacks maturity, this was the first major tournament held in the vicinity for over 35 years and it proved to be highly successful. The crowds were strong, media coverage formidable, and several sponsors such as Yeti Cement and Xiaomi supported the event. Perhaps most impressive was to see Dish Home satellite TV broadcast the competition live on its platform. If Nepalgunj is capable of achieving all of this, the prospects are even greater for the traditional hotbeds of Nepali football in the central and eastern parts of the country which economically also tend to be more robust. 

Undoubtedly, tournaments like the Nepalgunj Gold Cup will help grow football in the local area. If just a few footballers from Nepalgunj and Banke District can then ultimately make an impact on the national stage, already Nepali football will have improved significantly. Now the challenge is for the organizers to give continuity to the Nepalgunj Gold Cup. If they are successful in achieving this, the long-term legacy of the tournament will be formidable.

Opening of the Nepalgunj Gold Cup

Footballs to Sindhupalchowk

Excited to partner with GoalNepal.com and provide footballs to 12 schools in earthquake affected areas of Sindhupalchowk. I trust that participation in sports will serve as one way to help rehabilitate students from the trauma of the earthquake. Furthermore, I hope the kids at the schools can find the same joy in football and sports that I have found throughout my life and career.

Iceland’s football style not so unfamiliar to Nepal

Machhindra's former coach Johan Kalin

(This article originally appeared in Republica)

One of the major storylines and remarkable stories of the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament has been the fairytale run of Iceland. A country of just 330,000 inhabitants, long winters and limited outdoor football facilities, is undefeated heading into their quarterfinal match with hosts France.

Iceland’s Euro 2016 journey included a draw against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal side, a victory over the tournament dark-horses Austria and a shocking upset against England.

Coincidentally, there is an obscure link between Iceland’s national team and football in Nepal and it comes via Johan Kalin, the former head coach of Machhindra Football Club, an A-Division club in Nepal. Kalin, who hails from Sweden and continues to coach there at the lower leagues levels, has long been an admirer of fellow countryman and Iceland’s head coach Lars Lagerback.

“My coaching style and philosophy is highly influenced by Lagerback,” claims the 39-year-old, “If you look at the way Machhindra was developed and played when I was head coach it was very similar to Iceland.”

In terms of philosophy, Kalin explains that he sees the game in the same way to Lagerback, who previously coached Sweden from 2000 until 2009.

“We both believe in a foundation of defensive organization, a lot of running, strong team spirit and loyal players. That is what I tried to instill at Machhindra,” says Kalin, who coincidentally resides in the northern part of Sweden which geographically mimics Iceland.

“We played 4-4-2 and started to defend pretty low. We used a zonal defense all over the pitch and our focus was on creating 1 or 2 strong chances instead of 7 or 8 weak ones. Iceland did all this to perfection against England.”

Machhindra’s success under Kalin paralleled Iceland’s achievement of rising from 112 in the FIFA World Rankings to 34th in the latest one.

Perennial relegation candidates Machhindra over exceeded expectations and  finished second in the Martyr’s League A-Division in Kalin’s lone season in Nepal in 2013-14. The White Lions were victorious in all their Super League matches and were only one point adrift of champions Manang Marshyangdi Club in the final accumulated table.

“Like Iceland we did not have the big names in the squad so we had to rely on team spirit and tactics,” Kalin reminisces, “It took some time for the Machhindra players to buy into the concept and we struggled early, but when everything came together we were a formidable force - just as Iceland has become.”

Ingredients there, but cooks missing

Photo courtesy of GoalNepal.com

I should be used to it by now but I still get chills seeing photos like the one above. Nepal's appetite for football is insatiable. From the capital city of Kathmandu to most rural of villages of the country it is common to see packed crowds at football tournaments and thus fans finding creative means to get a glimpse of the action - whether it is from a rooftop, treetop or mountaintop.

In the last few months, to fill the void of the top level club championship, there have been dozens of tournaments across the country and the crowds, media coverage and sponsorship have been impressive. If all of these assets could be harnessed in a professional and systematic way the potential of Nepali football is massive. The ingredients are all there for Nepali football to flourish, it is just in desperate search for some good cooks. 

A few thoughts on Asean football

Super cup between Buriram and MTU in Bangkok

As the start of the various leagues in the ASEAN region are around the corner, I thought I would share my thoughts on some of them.

Thailand

With formidable results by its national teams and Buriram United's performance in the last edition of the AFC Champions League, it looked like Thailand was ready to graduate to the next tier of Asian football. Chonburi's 9-0 drubbing by FC Tokyo in the 2016 ACL playoffs however was a big reality check (MTU's 0-3 scoreline to Shanghai SIPG, despite a good performance, also did not help), showing that Thailand still has a ways to go to join the elite of Asian football.

That does not take away from the emergence of the Thai Premier League Premier League Thailand as one of the livelier leagues in Asia. In terms of marketing and fan culture, Thailand is right up there with any league in the continent. There are also plenty of websites, blogs and social media channels that provide information that make the league quite easy to follow. If the level of play on the field can catch-up with the off-the-field successes of the league and its clubs, and the constant politics in Thai football  were to finally subside, the PLT has a chance of being one of the top Asian leagues.

Buriram United and Muangthong United will battle it out for the domestic crown, though it seems Buriram is still at a higher tier than MTU. Buriram's exploits in Asia will be should have been interesting to follow. Unfortunately, they have self-destructed from the get-go.

Malaysia

I was about to write a blog post titled "Malaysian football's Malaysian problem". The gist of the piece was to argue that until the level of Malaysian players improve, Malaysian club football will be stuck at the AFC Cup level. With the AFC's 3+1 rule at a minimum 7 players on the pitch have to be Malaysian, therefore no matter the quality of the foreigners it is hard to see Malaysian clubs play in the AFC Champions League. After JDT's solid performance against Muangthong United of Thailand in the ACL qualifying round, I thought it was a bit unfair to publish such an article - because not just Malaysia but the entire region has the same issue.

Malaysian football has the fans and kind of has the money, but what they are seriously lacking is a large pool of quality players. That is why credit must be given to JDT and the vision of HRH Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim in heavily investing in youth development in the state of Johor through a serious and credible partnership with Borussia Dortmund.

The other thing missing in Malaysian club football is professional management. The off the pitch drama is a total soap opera and that certainly has an affect on what happens on the pitch.

Selangor and Felda look set to be near the top of the table but it is hard to pick against JDT. They will likely lift multiple trophies this season.

Singapore

I had lost my enthusiasm for the S-League a few weeks back. The team I keep an eye on, Geylang International FC, had a miserable season in 2015. Home United moved out of Yishun Stadium, which is right next to my residence, and FAS provided a poor vote of confidence to the S-League by announcing it was going to be a development league for the mysterious Asean Super League - which only FAS seems to know about.

Things however changed in a hurry. Lions XII were kicked-out of the Malaysian tournaments thus most of their players dispersed to S-League sides. Tampines Rovers signed Jermaine Pennant and several prominent sponsors partnered with the league and clubs.

The S-League became interesting again and early season crowds have been quite good. Hopefully, this will bring some stability to the league and perhaps a few defunct local clubs will consider joining the league again in the near future.

Tampines look like the title favorites. Albirex could make some noise.

Vietnam

I had the privilege to tour Vietnam at the beginning of the year and meet the V-League management and visit with all the clubs. It feels as though the V-League and Vietnamese football is in the ascendancy. While it cannot be compared to the more mature football nations in Asia, I was relatively impressed with the marketing and management of the V-League. Also Vietnam has a strong crop of youth players, several that are training Korean and Japanese clubs.

Becamex Bin Duong was very impressive against Muangthong United of Thailand (This team is everywhere! Third reference in this blog post) in a preseason friendly in Ho Chi Minh City. They have gotten off to a respectable start in the AFC Champions League as well. They should easily win the V-League.

Bonus: Laos

Afraid I'm not too familiar with Laotian football, but I did stumble upon the Lanexang United website the other day. Quite impressive for a developing football nation.

Nepali fans cheated by match-fixers

Nepali football fans in Malaysia

I was at the Shah Alam Stadium in Selangor, Malaysia in October of 2008 to watch the Nepal - Sierra Leone match in the Merdeka Cup. At the time I was an Asian Football Confederation staff member based in Kuala Lumpur. There were another 800-1,000 Nepali fans at the game as well,  most of them laborers working in Malaysia.

Shah Alam Stadium is not the most convenient stadium to get to. About 40 minutes or so from Kuala Lumpur, it is not very accessible by mass transport. A taxi ride there costs around $25-30 from the city center. If you consider ticket, food and opportunity costs, for a Nepali laborer earning between $200-$300 a month, making a trip to watch that game was a considerable investment.

Life in Malaysia can be tough for Nepali laborers. Many have to deal with less than ideal working conditions including hazardous work places, long hours, low pay and years without seeing their family. As a result, alcoholism and drug abuse are quite common. According to the Nepal Embassy approximately 1 Nepali laborer dies everyday in Malaysia (between 300-400 a year).  Many of the deaths are a result of substance abuse and suicide.

A chance to watch Nepal's national team  was certainly an investment for the laborers, but it was also a great reprieve - a chance to escape their daily ordeal and for 2 hours freely, proudly and passionately wave their national flag and support their heroes.

Unfortunately, if we are to believe notorious match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal's memoirs Kelong Kings, and the recent arrests of 5 Nepali players on the grounds of match-fixing by Nepal Police and subsequent lifetime bans by the AFC would suggest that there is no reason to dismiss his accounts, the  heroes the laborers went to see were actually villains.

Perumal, in great detail, claims in his book that he had paid the Nepal team to lose the match against Sierra Leone U-20 team. Despite facing a youth team of a very weak African footballing nation and being a man up for the majority of the game, due to a Sierra Leone player receiving a red card, Nepal gave-up two late goals, which Perumal says were deliberately conceded, and lost the match 1-3.

The match-fixing Nepali players got paid. The loyal Nepali fans were defrauded. The time, hard earned money, and commitment of the laborers all wasted on what was essentially a bogus match.

The laborers were just one group of loyal Nepali fans that were cheated by the match-fixers. Also hoodwinked were the professionals in America who wake-up in the early hours of the morning to watch the Nepal national team play on a shitty Internet stream, the thousands of students in Delhi and Dhaka that skip classes and go to the stadium with their faces painted red, white and blue, the freelance journalists that fly to the corners of Asia to provide live commentary of Nepal matches to fans across the globe, and of course the die-hards that wait on line for hours and pay thousands to get into Dasharath Rangashala.

Some have expressed their sympathies towards the match-fixing players arguing among other things that they were neglected by ANFA, needed to take care of their families, and are only a product of a very corrupt society where politicians get away with murder, literally and figuratively. While that might be true, being poor does not give anyone the right to rob a bank. My own sympathies - they go out to the millions of passionate Nepali football fans around the world who've been duped for years.

Youth football gaining momentum

I offer my apologies in advance to anyone expecting this blog post to offer jubilation over the success of Nepal’s Under 19 and Under 16 in the SAFF U19 Championship and AFC U16 Championship qualifiers. If you are looking for those types of pieces I would recommend going over to the official ANFA website or GoalNepal to get your fill. A short commentary on Nepal’s youth national teams’ achievements can be found at the bottom of this article.

There is another element of youth football that I would rather focus on and that Nepali football fans should get excited about. It is the emergence of youth football schools and academies across Nepal. In fairness, it is perhaps happening at a pace slower than the ideal, but for a country that was able to wait seven years for a constitution and used to long queues at government offices to petrol pumps, a bit of patience for sports development should be manageable.

Lalitpur Sports Training Center (Pic: LSTC Facebook Page)

Nepal had a futsal revolution and it may well be that it is on the verge of a youth football insurgency. A combination of factors including the proliferation of futsal halls, a growing urban middle class looking for activities for their children and the glamour of football brought on by the Premier League, Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo have given rise to youth football training centers across Kathmandu Valley and the country.

While Sahara Club, SWSC, MYA and Futsal Arena in Thamel, amongst a few others, were the pioneers on this front, at a recently held youth football workshop that I conducted, a new breed of football schools/academies were in attendance.

They included the hosts of the event, Lalitpur Sports Training Center, which is currently conducting weekend sessions for kids 8 to 14 at the Pulchowk Engineering Campus and hopes to take football training to every corner of Lalitpur district.

There was a group of soccer moms that have started the Kathmandu Kickers training program in Mandikhatar, initially for their own kids, but since open to everyone that meets several criteria including active involvement in the program by parents of the trainees.

Kathmandu Kickers organizers (Pic: KK Facebook Page)

A representative from RC32 Football Academy, a program initiated by national team player Rohit Chand and his brother Rabindra for kids in the Mid-Western city of Surkhet – hardly known for its football prowess, was also there.

The diversity of these training programs, from their geography to proprietors, is a reason for optimism. Youth football programs, once limited to the ANFA Academy, are now much more accessible and also lure talented professionals and volunteers to Nepali football.

With the dearth of structured youth football in the country, producing tangible results for soccer schools/academies is not so difficult. For example, a recent Under-12 national team squad that travelled to Korea Republic featured two players from Oshonik Club of Nepalgunj, a team that only conducts training on weekends. Presuming ANFA selectors are fair in their recruitment, we should easily see players from more of these types of training programs on the youth national team rolls in the near future.

Nepal’s youth national team success

Unfortunately, I cannot get excited about the results produced by Nepal’s youth national teams. We’ve been here before on numerous occasions in the past – Nepal’s juniors apparently producing great results only to later be fined by the AFC for fielding overage players. Until Nepal’s youth national teams are devoid players that have played league football for multiple years before being selected to the junior squads and youth success translates into the senior team winning matches, it is difficult to take Nepal’s youth level results seriously.

My opinion is shared by quite a few Nepali football insiders, but in a country that lacks many legitimate heroes and is desperate for positive news, most of these same people, as would transpire amongst the Roman masses when the Gladiator Games were being held at the Colosseum,  seem to get swept up in the euphoria of the moment. In private they voice their concerns about the legitimacy of the youth teams’ results, though publicly they celebrate the success on Facebook and other outlets. It makes straight shooters like myself come across as a negative minority. So be it.

An idea to promote local football

ANFA U12 trials

I saw this photo of the kids selected from the ANFA U12 trials and was thinking - why not make a rule that the players that come for the selection have to either wear a Nepal national team or Nepali club jersey. Allow clubs to sell their jerseys right outside the gates of the training field to generate additional income.

At Machhindra FC​ we made it mandatory for all players coming to our open trials to purchase a club jersey as a part of the registration fee. We grossed Rs. 50,000 in revenue from the scheme. MFC ran-out of jerseys during the event and in the end we let a few players join the selection for free and play without a White Lions kit. Surprisingly, those players who were admitted for free and without a jersey were furious. They actually wanted a shirt and were eager to pay the registration fee to get one!

Machhindra FC trials