Whether its a roaring crowd with frequent "Mexican Waves" or empty stadium, every Nepali always had deep down some part of their heart stuck in our football. We can still see the shades of that passion in the club matches of some clubs and almost always in national team games. We always have had high hopes from our national team, even more after we recently climbed higher above Indians and other South Asians in the FIFA rankings but national team is still not performing as we wish or hope our team would perform and this frustration always shows up. Coaches came and went, coaches from various countries and various level of experience but still level of our national team hasn't changed. May be its about time to say that may be the team is not good enough. May be the footballing culture that is prevailing in Nepal isn't moving in right direction. After the establishment of ANFA Acadamy, we seem to have discovered a big array of immensely talented players. While in academy they seem to be good enough to play at very high level but as soon as they switch to professional level football most of them disappear in the mist. Even if some do well in club level, they disappear in international level. Looking at this trend one has to be amazed that we haven't been able to spot out the root problem of Nepalese football.
Lets talk about club level football in Nepal. There are 3 division of club football which consists of almost all the clubs based in and around Kathmandu Valley with very few clubs coming out from outside of Kathmandu Valley. All the matches of all 3 divisions are played in Kathmandu, either in Dasharath Stadium or other surrounding grounds and attendances in most of the matches in all divisions are very very low. Can the supporters be blamed for not turning out in the stadium for matches? I don't think we can, as these matches are being held every day of week and a man has to work to pay for football. So, what is the solution of this problem? How can we increase the level of attendances in our grounds? We can hold all the matches in Saturdays, but it will take 8-9 months to complete one division league. What are the other options? We can hold matches in evening with floodlights on. But it still wont be able to capture the attention of supporters. Main problem lies in our league system. National league has become Kathmandu league or Kathmandu Valley league along with three semi-professional teams as Nepal Police Club, Armed Police Force Club, Nepal Army Cub are not professional clubs as the players are professionally policemen, army men and salaries of players and coaches are not paid by earnings of football but rather by tax payers money. Other clubs are not that professional as well. Although players are professional, clubs are still semi-professional as we haven't seen any kind of business mentality or entrepreneurship in the management of those clubs. Clubs are still ran as charities and as the corporate responsibility of big corporations to the sports and society. National league has always failed to catch the interests of peoples coming outside of Kathmandu Valley. It is one of the glowing example of Kathmandu centralized system of Nepal. I was born in Patan and grew up supporting Three Star Club. I still like to go for some matches when Three Star play on weekends. But when you see in our current first division, some clubs have support catchement of may be only few hundred houses in the core areas of Kathmandu valley. Rest of Nepal don't care about our national league. But does that mean, rest of Nepal don't care about Nepalese football at all? You just have to be at Pokhara to witness the craze during Aha gold cup or be in Dharan during Budhasubba goldcup. For football fans in those cities these regional tournament hold more importance than the National league. In Nepal huge amount of money has been invested with lots of knockout tournaments British Gorkha cup, Ncell Cup and all, but can we say by the progress of Nepalese football "money well spent"?
By the start of 19th century there was a country wide national league in England. Development of football was credited to the rapid development of railways and easy accessibility within England. Are we so in accessible even among major cities in Nepal? Lets say if we had proper development of football in Nepal since the development of east-west highway, then we would have had teams from Biratnangar, Dharan, Pokhara, Birgunj, Birtamod, Butwal, Nepalgunj, Hetauda, Chitwan, Bhairahawa. All the cities I have mentioned above are densely populated cities, in which Nepalese football is yet to tap the interest from fans. Along with a couple of clubs form Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kirtipur, Banepa-Dhulikhel we would have had a very competitive first division with football catching the interest of almost all he urban population of Nepal. We hadn't had great start as many countries in world and we don't even have a huge economy to hold 3-4 divisions of professional football. Even if we have a very competitive and well marketed 1st Division, rest divisions won't stand a chance to stand against the established top teams. As a glowing example we can take Indian cricket. Cricket had been India's premier sport for a long time but still with that population, interest and economy they were having hard time to make the sport completely professional. Now all they did is they used franchise format of American sport to fill that gap and now they have IPL. I can't imagine Nepal can have a league of any sport of that level of investment but we can still market our favorite sport to full, catch the imagination of football fans around Nepal and make our football truly professional.
So, lets say we are going for franchise model of football clubs. Then who is going to invest on that. I don't expect super rich of Nepal investing largely in Nepalese football, as a matter of fact I don't expect super rich of Nepal investing on anything for the good of Nepal. So, who can we turn to? We can turn to peoples, football fans themselves. We have half build football stadiums around the country. ANFA can improve the conditions on those stadiums and lease them to franchises which will be funded by the peoples of the cities themselves. I am pretty sure, they will collect enough money from every major city to form at least one -football club. So 12-15 teams at the start of league, involving whole country. Just imagine the marketing possibility in that aspect. Holding matches on Saturdays will give peoples less excuse for not going to stadium to watch matches. For a country and economy like Nepal this is the best way for any team professional sports. I hope ANFA and all those who are concerned about the development of football in Nepal should think long and hard on this. Without professionalism in sport we cannot make our good young players from academies to great players for future. Playing week in week out is the only way for them to improve themselves. And moving forward is the only option we have if we are going somewhere with our football.
Lets talk about club level football in Nepal. There are 3 division of club football which consists of almost all the clubs based in and around Kathmandu Valley with very few clubs coming out from outside of Kathmandu Valley. All the matches of all 3 divisions are played in Kathmandu, either in Dasharath Stadium or other surrounding grounds and attendances in most of the matches in all divisions are very very low. Can the supporters be blamed for not turning out in the stadium for matches? I don't think we can, as these matches are being held every day of week and a man has to work to pay for football. So, what is the solution of this problem? How can we increase the level of attendances in our grounds? We can hold all the matches in Saturdays, but it will take 8-9 months to complete one division league. What are the other options? We can hold matches in evening with floodlights on. But it still wont be able to capture the attention of supporters. Main problem lies in our league system. National league has become Kathmandu league or Kathmandu Valley league along with three semi-professional teams as Nepal Police Club, Armed Police Force Club, Nepal Army Cub are not professional clubs as the players are professionally policemen, army men and salaries of players and coaches are not paid by earnings of football but rather by tax payers money. Other clubs are not that professional as well. Although players are professional, clubs are still semi-professional as we haven't seen any kind of business mentality or entrepreneurship in the management of those clubs. Clubs are still ran as charities and as the corporate responsibility of big corporations to the sports and society. National league has always failed to catch the interests of peoples coming outside of Kathmandu Valley. It is one of the glowing example of Kathmandu centralized system of Nepal. I was born in Patan and grew up supporting Three Star Club. I still like to go for some matches when Three Star play on weekends. But when you see in our current first division, some clubs have support catchement of may be only few hundred houses in the core areas of Kathmandu valley. Rest of Nepal don't care about our national league. But does that mean, rest of Nepal don't care about Nepalese football at all? You just have to be at Pokhara to witness the craze during Aha gold cup or be in Dharan during Budhasubba goldcup. For football fans in those cities these regional tournament hold more importance than the National league. In Nepal huge amount of money has been invested with lots of knockout tournaments British Gorkha cup, Ncell Cup and all, but can we say by the progress of Nepalese football "money well spent"?
By the start of 19th century there was a country wide national league in England. Development of football was credited to the rapid development of railways and easy accessibility within England. Are we so in accessible even among major cities in Nepal? Lets say if we had proper development of football in Nepal since the development of east-west highway, then we would have had teams from Biratnangar, Dharan, Pokhara, Birgunj, Birtamod, Butwal, Nepalgunj, Hetauda, Chitwan, Bhairahawa. All the cities I have mentioned above are densely populated cities, in which Nepalese football is yet to tap the interest from fans. Along with a couple of clubs form Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kirtipur, Banepa-Dhulikhel we would have had a very competitive first division with football catching the interest of almost all he urban population of Nepal. We hadn't had great start as many countries in world and we don't even have a huge economy to hold 3-4 divisions of professional football. Even if we have a very competitive and well marketed 1st Division, rest divisions won't stand a chance to stand against the established top teams. As a glowing example we can take Indian cricket. Cricket had been India's premier sport for a long time but still with that population, interest and economy they were having hard time to make the sport completely professional. Now all they did is they used franchise format of American sport to fill that gap and now they have IPL. I can't imagine Nepal can have a league of any sport of that level of investment but we can still market our favorite sport to full, catch the imagination of football fans around Nepal and make our football truly professional.
So, lets say we are going for franchise model of football clubs. Then who is going to invest on that. I don't expect super rich of Nepal investing largely in Nepalese football, as a matter of fact I don't expect super rich of Nepal investing on anything for the good of Nepal. So, who can we turn to? We can turn to peoples, football fans themselves. We have half build football stadiums around the country. ANFA can improve the conditions on those stadiums and lease them to franchises which will be funded by the peoples of the cities themselves. I am pretty sure, they will collect enough money from every major city to form at least one -football club. So 12-15 teams at the start of league, involving whole country. Just imagine the marketing possibility in that aspect. Holding matches on Saturdays will give peoples less excuse for not going to stadium to watch matches. For a country and economy like Nepal this is the best way for any team professional sports. I hope ANFA and all those who are concerned about the development of football in Nepal should think long and hard on this. Without professionalism in sport we cannot make our good young players from academies to great players for future. Playing week in week out is the only way for them to improve themselves. And moving forward is the only option we have if we are going somewhere with our football.
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