NATIONAL8 (Spotlight Weekly]

Spoilsports

While Geeta Rana and Ganesh Thapa lock horns, the ultimate loser is the Nepalese football

By A CORRESPONDENT

Will the FIFA derecognize Nepal's football association? This is the million-dollar question haunting the sports fraternity of late following the intense power struggle between Ganesh Thapa and Geeta Rana.

While Ganesh Thapa was the President of All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) for the last five years, Geeta Rana, a school principal-turned-sports administrator, has recently been nominated by National Sports Council (NSC), the umbrella sports organization, as the President of ANFA ad hoc committee.

Thapa's five year term had expired just last week following which the NSC dissolved the ANFA executive committee and formed an ad hoc committee under the presidency of Rana.

But Thapa refuses to accept the NSC's decision. "We are bound by our own ANFA constitution. This is a naked breach of rules," yells Thapa. "By forming an ad hoc committee, NSC has also violated Supreme Court's stay order." According to Thapa, the Supreme Court had issued a stay order not to tamper with the present ANFA until its final verdict.

On Monday (October 16) Thapa went ahead and conducted an election of the new ANFA on his own saying it was in line with the constitution of ANFA. Thapa was re-elected as the ANFA President for next five years in this election.

On their part, the NSC chiefs declined to recognize Thapa's ANFA even as a senior official from FIFA was present as an observer during the election. Geeta Rana, too, says that Thapa's moves are illegitimate. "As NSC is the umbrella sports organization, ANFA is bound to be within its authority," she says.

Manilal Fernando, Vice President of Asian Football Confederation (AFC), who came here to observe the election, termed the recent developments in Nepalese football as unfortunate. Fernando also made it clear that AFC was fully behind Thapa.

In his five-year reign, the former national striker Thapa had managed to win accolades by taking some positive steps for the development of football in Nepal.

Thapa was widely appreciated for his pet project of grooming young school students as the future national players. Two years ago, ANFA selected 40 young boys for intensive coaching and placed them in a school hostel at its own cost. This year, too, the ANFA had selected 77 boys.

Thapa has also bagged the coveted Goal Project for Nepal which means that the FIFA will be investing more than a million dollars for the development of football in Nepal in the next few years.

"But all this could go in vain, if politics is allowed inside the football ground," says Thapa.

The warning from the AFC official, too, was not less forceful. If the present situation persists, Nepal may have to wash hands off from things like goal project, Fernando is quoted to have said. Fernando will present his report about the Nepalese football to the FIFA after he returns.

But as things remain unchanged, the tug-of-war between Thapa and Rana could ultimately result in the disaster for the Nepalese football.

VITAMIN A CAMPAIGN

The Health Ministry is launching a major drive to feed Vitamin A capsules to children below the age of five years in 69 districts of the country on October 18 and 19, 2000. More than 39,000 local women health volunteers will be mobilized at ward levels to feed the capsule to around 3 million children. The program aims to reduce child mortality level, cure eye diseases like night-blindness, raise awareness about the importance of Vitamin A by urging people to feed green vegetables and fruits to children by launching the program. The government has undertaken the program with the assistance of USAID, UNICEF and Australian Aid.