Long-serving Thapa was kicked out from the football body after he was charged by FIFA, the sport's international governing body, of corruption on November 16. He has been accused of misusing his authority and using football's budget for personal and family gains.Thapa, who was at the helm of ANFA since 1995, has been banned for 10 years from all football related activities by the Ethics Committee of FIFA and slapped a fine of Swiss Franc 20,000 (Rs 2.1 million).
Taking an opposing stance than of FIFA's, the anti-graft body of Nepal, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, on February 18, gave a clean chit to Ganesh Thapa on corruption charges. The anti-graft body had opened an investigation into alleged corruption after the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the parliament on September 29, 2014 found him guilty of irregularities. The parliamentary body had concluded that Thapa was involved in financial irregularities worth Rs 581.7 million during his stint as the leader of the football governing body.
The PAC had started a probe acting on the joint complaint lodged by former ANFA vice-presidents Karma Chhiring Sherpa and Bijaya Narayan Manandhar. They have accused Ganesh Thapa of financial irregularities, running ANFA autocratically and misusing ANFA resources for personal and family gains.
On September 28, the ANFA establishment sacked the three vice presidents--Sherpa, Manandhar and Kishor Rai--and member Pankaj Nembang as a retaliatory action for filing case against then president Ganesh Thapa.
Deputy general secretaries duo, Mani Kunwar and Bir Bahadur Khadka, and Eastern Region President Sanotsh Baniya were nominated vice presidents in their place.
Another biggest shock to Nepali football was the death of ANFA's acting president and senior vice president Lalit Krishna Shrestha on June 12. Shrestha, 50, was electrocuted at his new house in Bhainsepati on the very day he shifted there. Shrestha, also the president of Three Star, a National Football League champion, had spent more than three decades in football and was projected as the future president.
Two days after Thapa was banned by FIFA, the football governing body of the country nominated Narendra Shrestha as the acting president. Shrestha was a close aide of Ganesh Thapa during his reign at the ANFA, but was neither elected in the current executive committee nor held voting rights at ANFA. He had been nominated as a senior vice president of ANFA on September 28 in place of Lalit Krishna Shrestha.
The revelation of some Nepali players' involvement in match fixing, including skipper Sagar Thapa, rocked the country. The Nepal Police on October 14 arrested five footballers--Sagar Thapa, his deputy, Sandip Rai, and goalkeeper Ritesh Thapa as well as former Nepali internationals, Anjan KC and Bikash Singh Chhetri--charging them of fixing international matches. Anjan, a product of ANFA Academy and former coach of league champion Three Star Club, quit Three Star midway of the last National League.
The Asian Football Confederation later imposed a life ban on all the footballers. The AFC found the five players of steering the outcomes of Nepal's international fixtures from 2008 to 2012 under the infleunce of bookies.
The police charged them of treason and filed a case against all five at the Special Court. The court released them on bail on November 10. The court demanded Rs 500,000 from Ritesh and Anjan, Rs 150,000 from Sagar Thapa and Rs 50,000 from Bikash Chhetri and Sandip Rai as a bail amount.
Nepal's U-16 team was expelled from the final round of AFC U-16 Championship for fielding overage players in the AFC U-16 Championship Qualifiers. Nepal had qualified for the final round of the tournament after finishing runner up in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on August.
The only thing to cheer in football was the U-19 football team's victory in the final of First SAFF U-19 Championship played in Kathmandu in August. Nepal defeated India 5-4 on penalties after 1-1 draw in the regulation time. The win also ended Nepal's title drought for 22 years in the international football, although it was an age group event. However, the same team crashed out from the group stage of the AFC U-19 Championship Qualifiers in October, finishing at the bottom.
Most recently, during its second group match against India in the ongoing SAFF Championship, which it lost 1-4, the national team was able to break its 11-game goal drought in the international matches. Nepal had not scored since defeating India 2-1 in the last edition of SAFF in 2013.
However, Nepal made an early exit from the group stage after going down 0-1 against lowly Sri Lanka and India. Nepal had made it to the semifinal of the tournament on the last two occasions.
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