Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) - an umbrella association for Nepali sports journalists- announced seven nominees for the NSJF Pulsar Popular Player of the Year (PoY) award that includes two football players.

The awards ceremony, which will also consist of six other awards, will be held on September 10 amidst a function in the capital.

The popular player of the year awardee will be selected through the SMS voting. Users of Nepal Telecom and Spice Nepal mobiles can vote. The nominees are Rakesh Shrestha and Bikash Malla for football, Binod Das for cricket, Karisma Karki for swimming, Manish Hamal for chess, Pramila Rijal for athletics and Manju Gurung for volleyball.

The awardee will receive a cash prize of Rs 25,000, a Samsung camera, gift hamper from Surya Nepal and a carpet from Deepak Harsha Bajracharya.

The voting opened on Wednesday and will run until September 9.

Rakesh is the skipper of national football squad and Nepal Police Club. He is known as a reliable defender of the national squad and had played an important role in Nepal´s victory in the Prime Minister’s Cup Football Tournament this year.

Bikash is the national goalkeeper and skipper of Nepal Army Club. He was the key member of Manang Marsyangdi Club, the national league winner of 2062 before he joined the army.

Cricketer Binod Das led the Nepali national team to the third place in ACC Trophy and ICC Cricket Division V. Karishma Karki stole the limelight when he won 12 gold medals in the fourth National Games held in Kathmandu. Manish Hamal is the first player to receive FIDE Master Title and Manju Gurung was the key player when Nepal won Bronze in the 10th SA Games held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2006.

(To vote, type Pulsar poy and initials of nominee and send it to 2722.)

Rakesh Shrestha - Pulsar poy RS
Bikash Malla - Pulsar poy BM
Binod Das - Pulsar poy BD
Karishma Karki - Pulsar poy KK
Manish Hamal - Pulsar poy MH
Pramila Rijal - Pulsar poy PR
Manju Gurung - Pulsar poy MG
Â
Meanwhile, speaking at a function while revealing the nominees for the PoY Award on Wednesday, NSJF president Niranjan Rajbanshi said, "The nominees are already the winners as they are selected from among the players who performed well last year."

NSJF is annually organising this award ceremony to honor Nepali players and officials.

Ace football striker Jumanu Rai of Nepal Police bagged the award securing 68,682 out of 149,000 votes to win last year’s Poy Award. nepalnews.com