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Nepal stride where Bangladesh stumble

ATIQUE An AM from Kathmandu
For the second consecutive time, Nepal have made it to the semifinals of the SAFF Championship. Today they play against Afghanistan, and have a great chance of advancing, considering the performance they have put in so far in
the tournament. For a country which struggled to get past the group stages on seven occasions in the ten editions of the tournament so far, this is notable progress.
For Bangladesh though, who once used to make the last four on a regular basis, things have gone in the opposite direction. The 2003 champions and two-time runners-up have finished seventh out of eight teams in the latest two editions.
What is making the difference? There may be a number of reasons for this progress, but at its heart is the proper use of limited resources where Nepal is making the strides and Bangladesh are falling behind.
Bangladesh have not yet been able to set up a football academy thanks to the red-tape that is prevalent in the culture, despite getting FIFA assistance more than a year ago. Nepal, on the other hand, started the good work 16 years ago. Now they have five of those academies, four of which have been financed by the FIFA and run by the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA). Six of the current national team players, including striking duo Anil Gurung and Bharat Khawas, are products of these academies.
"The academies are one of the most conducive factors to football's development in Nepal," said Prajwal Oli, a senior sports correspondent of Republica, the third-most circulated English daily in Nepal. "Some of the best players of the national team have come from the academies."
The club structure in Nepal too is strikingly different from that of Bangladesh. Here,
most of the clubs, apart from the three force teams which are under the government's patronage, are owned by the ANFA officials, most of whom come from a football background. They're not businessmen themselves but they ensure sponsorship from corporate houses. In Bangladesh, most of the clubs are owned by either businessmen or ones with political clout, whose main aim is to win the title by any means and thereby increase their clout and prestige which often gives rise to collusion and match-fixing.
"Our football suffered from match-fixing too. But it has been curbed, if not eradicated, quite some time ago," said Oli.
The national team players, salaried by the ANFA, do not get a very big amount but enough at least to ensure that players do not have to worry about a regular stream of income.
"Bharat Khawas is a second lieutenant now and he will be promoted to captain soon. So he gets paid from the army and also gets 13 months' salary (12 months' plus one month bonus) from the ANFA, which makes his living much easier," Oli related.
The ANFA is all about Ganesh Thapa, the celebrated former footballer and long-serving president, who is moving towards his sixth tenure. The AFC vice-president has his critics for his autocratic way of politicking football, but he has his admirers too for the good work he has done for Nepalese football.
"He (Ganesh Thapa is) a controversial figure alright, but a charismatic one as well. He is responsible for lifting Nepalese football by luring the sponsors, minimising the factions and lifting the payment structure of the players," says Oli.
The AFC vice-president has used his clout to woo FIFA for the academies and the SAFF and AFC to organise international tournaments in Nepal on a regular basis, which has helped sustain the popularity of the game. That is perhaps the main driving force behind the game's development.