Cancer Gold Cup
By Biplav Gautam
(1998)

There is nothing like a father and son outing to a football match. It is a special time for them to bond, have fun and marvel in the joys of the “Beautiful Game.” Unfortunately in Nepal such outings are rather rare and even if they do happen it is perhaps more detrimental to family bonding than positive. 

Never mind the rather low quality of football that is played within our boarders or all the hassles that come with going to a venue like Dasarath Rangasala. The fact of the matter is such an outing would probably do far more in turning a family member into a smoker than a footballer.

I cannot help but express my dismay when attending my first match at the Khukuri Gold Cup. I went to watch a football match, but it was more a smoke-fest than anything else. Our national stadium was smeared with Khukuri tobacco advertisements, every other fan with a fag in their mouth and vendors clad in yellow Khukuri shirts ready to sell cancer sticks to the next bloke who undergoes a nicotine fit.

One can see why Khukuri Filters chose to put the word “Gold” in the name of the tournament as that is all they will be seeing after, in real terms, being able to cheaply promote their brand to the thousands of young youths – their target market, who unassumingly attend this farcical football tournament/tobacco convention.

It is a pity that “the powers that be,” feel a need to sink down to such a low to hold another “Mickey-Mouse” tournament that frankly need not be played after a grueling three months of non-stop football our top footballers have had to endure in the last couple of months. One would think that our football administrators would have better judgment than to associate our beloved game with the tobacco establishment – an institution that goes against all the values of sports and fitness.

It is a shame that in a day and age where smoking is anti-vogue and systematically being banished from the international sports scene, in Nepal it continues to have a cozy relationship in our sports culture. Even if our sports leadership conclude the financial rewards of tobacco a necessity for Nepali sports, is it too much to ask them to force the firms to put complementing warning labels on their ads? Is it unreasonable to at least ban the sale of tobacco and not permit smoking within the confines of our sports arenas?

These are issues that our sports administrators and more specifically our football officials need to deeply reflect on. Hopefully personal greed will not get in the way of worldly thinking, but as always I must remind myself that this is Nepal. I guess I can take some comfort in the low attendances at the Cancer Gold Cup matches as it means less of our citizens will be subject to the trap set-up by Khukuri Filters and their helpful football counterparts.