National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

Experience Counts

In the end, it was the experience of East Bengal that got them the trophy

By A CORRESPONDENT

When East Bengal lifted the San Miguel International Cup after defeating the Hannam University team of South Korea on Sunday (January 2), it was the sheer experience of the Indians that proved to be winner in the end.

After the two teams failed to net the ball even once during the whole 90 minutes and 30 minutes extra time, the final had to be decided through a tiebreaker. The East Bengalis won the game 4-2 after two South Koreans missed the goal post.

It was a rare sight. After a gap of many years, the football-lovers of the country were able to relish the international match at Dasarath Stadium.

Four international teams and two national teams participated in the first San Miguel International Cup organized by the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA). The international teams included

East Bengal, Hannam University of South Korea, Tollygunj Agragami of India and Faresganj of Bangladesh. Likewise, Nepal had put forth two teams - Blue and Red. Both the teams had an array of national players.

In the league tourney, Nepal (Red) had defeated East Bengal by 1-0 while the Nepal (Blue) had defeated South Koreans by 1-0. The league outcomes had encouraged Nepalese football fans but their euphoria was short-lived after East Bengal thrashed Nepal (Blue) by 1-0 and South Koreans uprooted Nepal (Red) by 2-0 at the semi-final encounters they had.

East Bengal, which has over a century-old-history in Indian football, is also the winner of the India's National League. The Hannam University team is also said to be the winner of the University Cup in South Korea.

Having come to Kathmandu after a decade, East Bengal team, however, were not in a mood to return empty-handed. In 1993 also they had bagged the Wai Wai Cup Trophy. The team also fielded a number of Brazilian players who play for the club.

The overall analysis of the match showed that the level of Nepalese players, too, was not too low compared with them. Each of the Nepali team took turns to defeat both the finalists during the league tourney. But, as usual, they failed to prove their worth in the crunch time and both of the crashed out of semi-finals.

Meanwhile, the tournament itself marked a restart of international matches in the country. The year 2004 did, indeed, see a host of tournaments at the Dasarath Stadium. First it was the national league, which was followed by Himalayan Bank Cup and now the San Miguel International Cup. At a time when football is shifting from its traditional culture to more professional sports, it is important for ANFA to hold similar international and regional tournaments more frequently in the future. The packed crowds at the stadium showed that there is no dearth of football fans who will come to watch quality games.

Ginger Export In A Limbo

Following the Indian policy to make licensing mandatory to import ginger from Nepal, ginger worth more than Rs. 52 million is in a stage of being rotten in the western district of Palpa, news reports say.

Nepali farmers, who had been freely exporting ginger in the previous years to Indian towns have been affected by yet another agony, before they could recover from the last year's sufferings caused by the imposition of the quarantine. And now the Indian government has made it mandatory for all ginger traders to get license before they can sell the products in the Indian market. This new decision was made about a month and a half ago.

Sources have revealed that the license should be received from the Office of the Director General of Foreign Trade (of India) but those who wanted to get the license have not received yet. Because of this more than 3500 metric tons of their produce is lying idle in Palpa district alone.

According to Lila Bahadur Karki, coordinator of Rural Economic Development Association (REDA) – which is helping in the sales and promotion of ginger – farmers are compelled to throw away their produce because of delay in exports.

The obstruction to Nepalese ginger comes even as tea exporters have been complaining of hassles in exporting their goods to India. According to them, trucks carrying tea have to wait for weeks at border point before they are allowed into India because the Indian authorities take a long time to send a sample of their products to Kolkata for tests. The test results also take a long time to reach the border authorities.