Martyr’s Memorial A division football League in on the half way in Nepal’s National stadium. But there are only average of about 500 – 800 fans a day that come to the stadium to witness the nation’s top league. There are certainly some clubs which pull more fans. Below are the assessment made by me on this years Martyr’s League about the number of fans who come to support their teams. 

Above figures are not exact. When there is match between MMC and MPC, about 5000 fans witness the match. The capacity of the Nepal’s stadium is 20,000 and only few fans come to the stadium to see league. WHY? Who to blame? Do Nepalese people not like football?

Below are some of the reasons why we have scarcity of fans in Nepalese football.

Lack of Management / Marketing in ANFA

ANFA officials still don’t realize that football is industry. They are in hurry to do the league without proper planning and homework. Like this year’s league, journalist and even the participating clubs didn’t know when the league will start. It is the day before the start of the league that ANFA called journalists and clubs officials to notify that the league will start tomorrow. How can we except the FANS to know that when the league starts? So ANFA need to develop the football calendar and implement it. Distribute it to clubs in all divisions, to press and to the football fans. ANFA can sell it and I know the fans will buy it. When asked about the calendar, ANFA officials say that they have one but cannot be seen by other. It’s strictly confidential for ANFA officials. How could football be developed by that? Secondly, ANFA need to market football / league. My profession being an Event Manager, I wonder why ANFA didn’t market football. When My event management company organized an musical event at Dasarath Rangasala  6 months ago, there are  about 15000 people come down to see the event and the ticket price was Rs. 100. Now ANFA have ticket price of Rs. 30 for the league and we only have average of 300 fans turn out to see the league. Why? ANFA should know that it will take minimum of 3 month to organize/ market an event. ANFA should recruit marketing professionals and establish their own marketing department which will be responsible of marketing the football in Nepal. In other words finding sponsors and motivating fans to come to stadium. So ANFA is hugely to be blamed for the scarcity of fans to stadium.

Ticket

Off course Fans need to buy ticket to enter the stadium. Now the ticketoprice is Rs. 30 and Rs. 60 which is affordable. But similar rules must be applied to all the fans. Police and Army always enter for free showing their identity card. Why they are allowed to enter free? This type of provisions of the police and army personals surely is the motivating factor for the civilians not to go to stadium, buy ticket and watch football. They feel like why buy ticket , as others watch for free.

Another thing is that the ticket should be given to clubs to sell. Example like for the game against MMC and BBC, 5000 tickets each should be given to both clubs. The deal should be like how many ticket they sell, the half of the revenue should be given to the club itself. Lets say if BBC sold 2000 ticket of Rs. 60, total will be Rs. 120000. So 60000 should be given to BBC and 60000 should be taken by ANFA. In this way the clubs will sell more tickets and there money for clubs and revenue for ANFA. It is better idea than commencing the league with only 500 fans. Imagine each club selling ticket for their 12 games. In this way clubs are motivated to sell more ticket to get more revenue for the club.

Lastly make seasonal ticket to sell to big corporate houses. Lets say the price about Rs. 2500 per ticket for season. I’m sure that big corporate house’s will buy some of the seasonal tickets.

Clubs to blame also

As the league is becoming professional, clubs buy good players from outside the valley. They left behind the local players. Like RCT used to have he support few years ago. But now RCT is one of the club that have limited supporter due to they oversee local players. RCT have only one local players in their team. Same in the case of NRT. MMC have huge crowd support mainly from MANANGE community due to the club is run by Manange’s. So clubs should encourage local players. Clubs should have their own marketing policy and their own marketing plans to get more supporter and fans.

Vulgarity 

Another factor that affects the fans in stadium. Nepalese fans are very vulgar. I took one Japanese guy (My friend) who is studying Nepalese Language in Nepal to see football. He said, Nepalese are very vulgar. I agree with that. Nepalese fans use all sort of vulgar words to players, officials. So we barely see ladies fans in stadium. And certainly these ladies don’t encourage others to go to stadium. Lets change out attitude about the game and lets change our vulgarity to make it easy for other fans to come to stadium to witness the football matches.

Hooliganism 

Fight in stadium in another factor. This problem occurs in some of the games but it will effect all the games and the intensity of fans of going to stadium. Police fans (police in out dress) is to blame for this in Nepal. They beat MMC fans, RCT fans, the guard who check ticket in the stadium gate and other fans in stadium in this years Martyrs League. And off course media does highlight it. So fans change their mind of going to stadium. So POLICE fans must be controlled to make other fans easy.

Above are only some of the factors that affects and may change the mind of people willing to got to stadium to see football matches. But there are some die hard football fans like me who come to stadium to witness each of every match of the Martyrs League and other tournaments. I can see about 50 of the regular fans coming to stadium to witness each and every match.

By: Dinesh Thapa
football_nepal@yahoo.com