ANFA´s 13th annual general assembly, held in Kathmandu on Tuesday, amended the statute despite some assembly members strongly opposing it.
A source present in the general assembly said that some of the members strongly opposed the amendment stating it would encourage a trend of adjusting and distributing posts for maintaining status-quo within the association.
However, ANFA President Ganesh Thapa said that the amendment was made to take ANFA´s plans and program forward smoothly. "We have a number of program for the future. To conduct them smoothly, we need more people. As most of us are contributing voluntarily, we have decided to amend the provision," said Thapa after the completion of the general assembly.
However, the source alleged that the idea of amendment came to take forward Thapa´s politics of maintaining status quo. "As next general assembly to be held in 2013 would be an electoral congress, Thapa had started his balance politics," said the general assembly member.
To address the controversy, ANFA had elected 31-member executive committee three years ago and included it in its statute as temporary provision but ANFA statute had a provision of electing 17-member executive committee then onwards.
Then, ANFA had said that Asian Football Confederation (AFC) approved its statute of electing 31-member executive committee only as a special provision.
"We´ll again forward the amendment to AFC. We hope, they would approve it but if they don´t, we have no option other than electing 17-member committee," said Thapa.
The general assembly also amended the provision of electing new representatives of the B and C division clubs before every general assembly and decided to give them a four years fixed term.
Meanwhile, the general assembly approved the financial report and the budget presented by Treasurer Birat Jung Shahi. The report shows that ANFA had spent Rs144.6 million in the fiscal year 2068/069 BS and proposes a budget of Rs 137 million for the fiscal year 2069/070 BS.
The ANFA´s balance sheet presented to the general assembly members showed Rs 81.5 million as the carry forward amount. Earlier, ANFA President Thapa had courted controversy after publicly stating that he had kept the amount from gate collection separately not even informing the executive committee for developing infrastructures. Following the controversy, the amount is included in this year´s balance sheet as carry forward amount.
According to a general assembly member, all the decision were taken unanimously and nobody raised questions even about the carry forward amount and the controversy related to Thapa´s son Gaurav receiving $100,000 from disgraced and banned AFC President Mohammad Bin Hammam.
The general assembly also approved the development program presented by ANFA President Thapa and it approved annual calendar of ANFA. The calendar includes hosting SAFF Championship, AFC Challenge Cup Qualifiers and AFC U-14 Football Championship in Kathmandu as well as organizing other domestic football tournaments. The development program includes constructing grounds in 10 hilly districts including Jumla.
The general assembly also endorsed the membership of three newly formed district associations, namely - Taplejung, Bhojpur and Jumla. The general assembly also approved guidelines for running District Leagues and Inter-District Leagues under the program of Red Bull National League.
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