Largest club tournament to be held
29 January 2003: Over 400 teams from 30 districts will participate in the Khukuri Cup. This will be Nepal's biggest ever club tournament and it will be similar in format to the old Coca-Cola National League. The winner of each district will meet the 12 "A" division clubs, the two service clubs and an ANFA Academy side in the second round. Those 45 teams will be divided into three groups of 15 with the top four teams in each pool advancing to the final round in Kathmandu. The winner of the tournament will be awarded 200,000 Rupees. The Khukuri Cup will begin on February 4 and conclude April 5.

Nepal to host Asian Cup qualifiers
27 January 2003: Kathmandu will play host to the "group C" Asian Cup qualifiers from March 16 - 20. Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan will join Nepal in the group. It will be a single round robin format with the top team advancing to the second qualifying round.

Bangladesh SAFF champions!
20 January 2003: Bangladesh defeated Maldives on 5 - 3 on penalty kicks to lift the SAFF Cup. The game ended 1 - 1 after regulation time.

Nepal crash out of SAFF Cup!
15 January 2003: An opening goal by Nirajan Rayamajhi in the 56th minute proved futile, as Maldives stormed back with three consecutive goals and edged Nepal 3 - 2. Dev Narayan Chaudhary scored a late consolation goal. Nepal's SAFF Cup campaign is now over.

Disappointing win for Nepal
13 January 2003: Nepal will have to beat Maldives to advance to the semifinals of the SAFF Cup as they could only manage to put two goals past minnows Bhutan. Nirajan Rayamajhi and Kumar Thapa scored the two goals for Nepal in a 2 - 0 victory. Maldives has a goal difference of +5 while Nepal has only a +1, thus a draw does the mountain boys no good in their next match against the islanders.

Nepal loses opener!
11 January 2003: Nepal lost to Bangladesh 1 - 0 in their first match at the SAFF Cup. Alfaz Ahmed  scored the lone goal for Bangladesh in the 30th minute. In the other match of the day, Maldives whipped Bhutan 6 - 0 thanks largely to a hat-trick by Ali Shiyam.

SAFF_STAN!
10 January 2003: President of the AFC, Mohammad Bin Hammam, at a news conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh stated that the four Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will become members of SAFF and play in the next SAFF Cup in two years time. This is all part of a master Asian football development plan laid out by Hammam a few months back. Kazakhstan left the AFC to join UEFA last year.

Sagar Thapa out of Cup
9 January 2003: Sagar Thapa has been ruled out of the SAFF Cup as he was diagnosed with jaundice before the national team left for Dhaka.

Club tournaments start in February
7 January 2003: The Khukuri Gold Cup, Nepal's richest football tournament, will take place between February 4 and April 1. Later in the year, ANFA will also hold the ANFA Coca-Cola Cup and the Martyrs League. ANFA plans on having Nepal's club champions participate in the Asian Champions League next year.

ANFA committed to reaching U17 World Cup
7 January 2003: ANFA has laid out an ambitious plan to reach the FIFA Under 17 Championship by the end of the decade. ANFA will allocate nearly 18 million Rupees to start football academies in 30 districts which will have close to 1000 boys participating in the project.

Football budget announced
7 January 2003: ANFA has announced a budget of 40 million Rupees for the coming year. Half of the budget will come from FIFA grants, while the other half will come from sponsors, benefactors and ticket revenues.

Final squad picked!
3 January 2003: A final squad of 21 players was chosen for the SAFF Cup yesterday. The four players that got cut were Basanta Gauchan, Ritesh Thapa, Raj Kumar KC and Raj Kumar Shrestha.

30 to get 400K
3 January 2003: ANFA will be giving 30 districts Rs. 400,000 each to set up football academies. ANFA hopes that over 1000 boys will receive scholarships through the program.

Thapa says no to NSC post
3 January 2003: Ganesh Thapa stated at a function in Pokhara that he is not interested in the currently vacant NSC President post. He said that football is his one and only love and he plans to devote his full attention to it.

Rana fights on!
3 January 2003: Geeta Rana filed a petition with the Supreme Court against sports and football officials for disobeying court orders. Among those named as defendants were Ganesh Thapa, NSC member Binod Palikhe and NOC president Rukma Shamshere Rana.

Nepal fall in Bhutan
3 January 2003: Nepal's under 21 team failed to reach the finals of the Jigme Wangchuk Memorial King Cup in Bhutan. Still no word on which team knocked them out.