It has now been 84 days since FIFA suspended the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) indefinitely on June 25, citing third-party interference. Nepali football has been largely paralysed since players aren’t competing, coaches aren’t training teams, and referees aren’t officiating.
The government has repeatedly claimed it is in talks with FIFA to lift the suspension, with Education and Sports Minister Sasmit Pokharel saying publicly on several occasions that discussions were going well and a resolution was near. Yet 84 days on, the ban remains in place and, according to ANFA, the government has not held a single direct conversation with the association itself during that time.
ANFA General Secretary Kiran Rai says the association has reached out repeatedly, directly and indirectly, but government officials have responded that ANFA’s leadership term has already expired, leaving little basis for talks. ANFA had planned a protest and memorandum submission at the National Sports Council on Tuesday, but postponed it after the government proposed talks. Those talks, however, did not happen as scheduled.
The suspension stems from a dispute between the government and ANFA over early elections. The current ANFA leadership wanted to hold elections before its term ended, while the National Sports Council pushed for a regular general assembly instead. The early election didn’t happen, and Nepal wasn’t spared FIFA’s suspension either; it came on June 25, after NSC’s own earlier suspension of ANFA (from late March to mid-May) failed to resolve the underlying dispute. Nepal’s women’s team has already lost a FIFA series because of the ban, and the men’s team now risks missing the SAFF Championship if the suspension isn’t lifted by the end of September.
Rai said ANFA had stayed largely quiet publicly out of concern that going public could jeopardise the ongoing government–FIFA dialogue, but that patience is wearing thin the longer the impasse drags on. He argued that continuing to let the situation stay unresolved only puts players’ futures and the country’s standing in international football at risk.
He further said the priority should be shielding Nepali football from a “loss” that would affect the whole country, not any individual’s political win or loss.
NSC member secretary Ram Charitra Mehta, however, maintains that talks are pointless since ANFA’s current office-bearers’ term has already expired, questioning who exactly the government would even be negotiating with.
