450 schools for the Inter-school football tournament is massive success: Karma Tsering Sherpa
He was the happiest man after completion of the Coca Cola Cup Inter-school Football Tournament that involved a record 450 schools in a two phase competition. He is none other than Karma Tsering Sherpa, who is the vice president of All Nepal Football Association (ANFA), President of Himalayan Sherpa Club and coordinator of Coca Cola Inter-school Football Tournament.
Sherpa, who has been working for the betterment of Nepali football for quite a while, states how he feels about the competition and youth football in Nepal. Excerpts:
Tell us about the Coca Cola tournament. How did you manage such a large participation in the tournament?
This tournament is for all Nepali schools. We had many tournaments earlier, but none of them exists now. With the help of cordial relationship with Bottlers Nepal Limited (BNL), we came forward with this idea and BNL supported us. This is the third edition and we already had huge participation in the past. This year, we had a record 450 schools from the whole country. We separated the tournament in two phases; regional and central. In regional phase, schools from each region had to fight to be selected for the final round.
How was the response from the schools that took part in the competition? What attracts those schools to take part in the competition?
It was overwhelming. We are very thankful to the schools. Actually, we had staged the tournament in five regions. We saw huge response from local schools. Our affiliate district associations put up a huge effort for selecting the schools. We had already announced that the winner will get Rs 200,000, which is the highest price in Nepal for school level. We had also separated Rs 100,000 cash for runner up and 50,000 and 25,000 for third and fourth placed team. I think this drove the schools to take part in the competition.
How did the selected schools manage their expenditure while playing central level games in Kathmandu?
Good question and an important one. We had provided accommodation and food for all schools that were selected for the final round. We even provided jersey and shorts for the participating teams. It was all possible from the money which we received as sponsorship amount from BNL. We are very happy that Pokhara based Social School won the tournament.
Do you think this kind of school level football tournament is helping Nepali football?
Yes, of course. It is helping a lot, especially the Coca Cola Cup. Imagine if we pick up two talents from 10 selected schools, there would be 20 highly talented players. If we manage to put them in the Academy and get them groomed, we can produce at least five extraordinary football players. I’d like to tell you youth football in Nepal is the best in the South Asian region. We are even ready to compete against East and West Asia. We have that evidence. We are always competitive youth football tournaments. We have always come in top position in South and Central region tournaments.
What are the things that ANFA is doing for Youth Football?
We have five technical football centers across the country where more than 60 young footballers are taking knowledge of football. We select the players from those academies for the international tournaments, which also provide opportunity for rookies to have exposure in the tournament. We will soon start the second phase goal project that will make at least 8-10 football grounds in hilly regions where football is popular. We have many age-bar tournaments in Nepal.
Do you think Nepal football can leap forward in some year’s time?
Yes. We are trying our best. We are depending a lot from youth academy and also from talents outside the academy. In fact, Nepali youth football has improved a lot.
nepalnews.com Bikram Thapa Aug 18 08
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