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Kathmandu Tuesday March 20, 2001 Chaitra 07, 2057.
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ANFA and
sports
Dispute over the All Nepal Football
Association (ANFA) has been ratcheted up a notch with the resignation of British
instructor to Nepal’s national football team Stephen Constantin well ahead of the end
of his three -year term. Although he has not disclosed the reason for throwing in the
towel, it is believed his position had become untenable. In his resignation letter to the
chairman of the Asian Football Confederation, Constantin is said to have pointed out that
it had become very difficult to work in Nepal because of the ANFA dispute. The
country’s apex football body has bifurcated into two separate ANFAs. The ANFA, led by
Gita Rana has the endorsement of the National Sports Council, while the other ANFA, led by
Ganesh Thapa, is recognised by the International Football Federation (FIFA). Another
victim of the unseemly dispute has been Nepal’s hosting of the group six matches
under the World Cup selection process. Nepal’s participation in the World Cup is
likewise in doubt. Some national level footballers have announced that they will not be
participating in any international fixture until the ANFA dispute is settled.
The ANFA controversy is but the latest in the
Nepalese sports world. The umbrella sports body, the National Sports Council, has itself
not been free of troubles ranging from over staffing to inability to keep the ball rolling
as it were. The Sports Council invariably sends oversized teams to represent Nepal at the
Olympics, knowing fully well we don’t stand a chance. During the last Olympics, there
was another controversy over disparity in daily allowances paid to sports persons and
officials on the Nepalese team. Our performance at other international sporting events is
little better. And everyone knows how the Sports Council became a bastion of unwarranted
power and privilege back in the Panchayat days and how it went about merrily imposing its
own taxes left and right, all in the name of the advancement of Nepalese sports, and by
implicating Nepal’s prestige abroad.
Therein lies the nexus that has been used to
push sports way beyond the priority it deserves in a poor country such as ours. True, all
work and no play makes jack a dull boy, and to avert this, sports has to be given a place
in national life. But inordinate priority is wrong. Saner counselling prevailed soon after
democracy’s restoration when the authorities decided that Nepal honestly did not have
the resources and infrastructure to host a SAF games. But a few years later, it was
business as usual. We soon found ourselves not only hosting another SAF games, but also
laying out a whole new sports complex for the purpose. Our northern neighbour China
pitched in with the necessary aid in money, material and know-how, and we incurred an
obligation that should have been reserved for something more urgent and essential.
National prestige at home and abroad, with which we are told sports is linked, should be
earned first through keeping our own house in order and being a responsible member of the
comity of nations. It is only countries with an ideological axe to grind, that make
excelling in sports a big prestige issue. Nazi Germany did it in the l930s, the former
East Germany and other communist states did it in recent times. Our own emphasis on sports
should be measured and made proportionate to our other needs.
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