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The
All Nepal Football Association, with the hopes of improving the standard of the national team, started
an ambitious project to recruit the 40 best under 12 year-old players in Nepal
and have them live, study and receive football training together and in due
course they would represent Nepal at the youth and senior national team
levels. The hope was that if players were given intense daily football
training from an early age, they would eventually become a player of a high caliber
and be able to compete at the highest football levels.
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ANFA
Academy trainees at the Sadobato Complex |
Though
the project only started a few years back, at least the first batch of 40 boys
have proved somewhat successful. They have already won many youth tournaments
in South Asia against older teams. They have also received much publicity in
Nepal and even around the globe after appearances on various international
football and sport shows. Some say that one of the main reasons Nepal received
the FIFA Goal Project (A football development aid package) so quickly was
because of the success of the ANFA Academy. Despite
the relative success of the ANFA Academy, it does have its critics. Some say
that ANFA is putting all its eggs in one basket with the academy and fear that
other football development projects will receive minimal attention. The
academy has already been referred to as the future national team, making many
within the Nepali football sector skeptical whether other players who do not
come from the academy will be given a fair chance at trying-out and playing
for the future national teams at youth and senior levels. Nepal's 2002 Asian
under 20 side that went to Uzbekistan was comprised solely of ANFA Academy
players. There
are also those who feel that Nepal does not have the proper footballing
infrastructure to help the kids develop. If there are not any proper fields,
teams or leagues, no amount of training will be sufficient to produce top
quality players. Finally, some point-out that 12 is a very young age, and far
too early to know whether a child will have the physical and mental attributes
to become a quality footballer.
Withstanding
the criticism, there are high hopes for the ANFA Academy and certainly it is a
step in the right direction for a country with little footballing pedigree.
The ANFA Academy has proved so popular that it already has three branches
across Nepal and even a girls academy was developed by the Nepal Women's Football Committee. In December of 2002, it was announced that all 30 district
football associations of Nepal were going to be made to set up a football
academy.
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