KATHMANDU, Oct 9: Fresh corruption charges against four suspended All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) officials have once again put the governance of Nepali football under scrutiny, amid a FIFA suspension that has barred the country from international competitions over alleged third-party interference.
The government has charged the four suspended officials, including President Pankaj Bikram Nembang and General Secretary Kiran Rai, with financial irregularities, fraud, corruption and match-fixing.
The District Government Attorney’s Office, Lalitpur, filed the case at the Lalitpur District Court against Nembang, Rai, Treasurer Rabindra Joshi and Accounts Officer Sanjiv Pandey, seeking to recover Rs 9.3 million in alleged losses. Joshi and Pandey are in custody, while Nembang and Rai remain at large.
The case follows an investigation by the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police into alleged financial misconduct within ANFA, including the handling of revenue from an international football match, procurement of sports equipment, distribution of World Cup tickets and a sponsorship agreement.
The charges have brought renewed attention to the Nepali football, which has faced allegations of corruption and mismanagement for years. The latest prosecution comes as ANFA remains suspended by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body, following a dispute with the National Sports Council (NSC) over the association’s governance and electoral process.
FIFA suspended ANFA with immediate effect on June 24, 2026, citing what it described as flagrant violations of its statutes through third-party interference. The suspension bars Nepal’s national teams and clubs from international competitions organised by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). ANFA and its members also lose access to FIFA and AFC development programmes, training courses and other benefits during the suspension.
FIFA suspension pushes Nepali football into crisis
The dispute arose after the NSC suspended ANFA for three months in March as the association prepared for its election process. Although the suspension was lifted in May, disagreements over the electoral process and amendments to ANFA’s statutes continued. FIFA maintains that national football associations must operate independently of government bodies and has made the lifting of Nepal’s suspension conditional on the reversal of the NSC’s decisions and the completion of ANFA’s electoral process.
The developments have exposed a difficult governance question for Nepali football: while allegations of financial wrongdoing have prompted domestic investigation and prosecution, FIFA’s rules restrict government intervention in the affairs of its member associations.
The latest allegations also revive memories of the controversy surrounding former ANFA president Ganesh Thapa, one of the most influential figures in Nepali and Asian football for nearly two decades.
In November 2015, FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee suspended Thapa from all football-related activities for 10 years and fined him 20,000 Swiss francs after finding him guilty of multiple breaches of its ethics code, including bribery and corruption. FIFA’s Appeal Committee rejected his appeal in April 2016 and upheld the 10-year ban, which expired in April 2025.
Thapa’s case unfolded amid a wider corruption scandal that rocked FIFA and Asian football. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter was suspended in 2015, while former Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam had faced separate allegations and sanctions linked to football governance and payments. The cases involved different allegations and outcomes, but collectively exposed serious questions about accountability and transparency at the highest levels of international football. In a later development, Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini were acquitted of corruption charges by a Swiss court in March 2025.
In the current case, investigators allege that the four ANFA officials deliberately moved Nepal’s home match against Bahrain, scheduled for March 21, 2024, at Kathmandu’s Dasharath Stadium under the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup qualifiers, to Bahrain.
According to the charge sheet, ANFA was entitled to receive US$20,000 in ticket-sale revenue from the Bahrain Football Association for hosting the match. Investigators allege that the money was misappropriated instead of being deposited into ANFA’s bank account.
The investigation also found that ANFA officials allegedly established three fake firms under common ownership to purchase sports equipment while circumventing the tender process. ANFA’s Financial Procedures, 2018, require purchases worth more than Rs 1 million to be conducted through a tender.
The charge sheet further alleges that ANFA failed to distribute transparently the 330 online tickets provided by FIFA for the 2026 World Cup, allowing them instead to be traded on the black market and sold privately.
In another allegation, General Secretary Rai personally received Rs 2.5 million under a sponsorship agreement with Sherpa Outdoor but misappropriated the money rather than depositing it into ANFA’s account.
The prosecution has sought punishment for all four defendants under Section 32(c) of the National Sports Development Act, 2020, for offences involving match-fixing and irregularities defined under Section 31. It has also sought penalties under Section 249(3)(a) of the National Penal Code, 2017, for offences defined under subsections (1) and (2) of Section 249.
The government attorneys have sought compensation of Rs 9,300,900 for ANFA. The prosecution has also asked the court to order the defendants to deposit the required compensation fee into the Victim Relief Fund under Section 41 of the Crime Victim Protection Act, 2018.
The charge sheet states that additional charges may be filed if further reliable evidence establishes the involvement of other officials, employees or individuals. It also allows for further investigation into possible money-laundering offences if evidence shows that assets were acquired through criminal activities and subsequently transferred or used elsewhere.
