Nepal’s women excel in sports in 2024

Ahead of the final SAFF Women’s Championship game between Nepal and Bangladesh in late October, the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA), had to take over the sale of tickets for the game in Kathmandu after turnout exceeded the stadium’s 15,000 capacity.

Thousands of fans queued up for hours to see the match, and more than 1 million people tuned in to watch the game on YouTube where it was officially streamed live, marking highest live viewership ever recorded in Nepal’s sports history.

The women’s team lost that final match to Bangladesh, but the spirit and skill the Nepalis displayed shined a belated spotlight on Nepal’s female athletes.  

In 2024, Nepali athletes in many other sports besides football also showed notable performances on the world stage, and their compatriots attended the events in overwhelming numbers to cheer them on.  

In March, Nepal’s para-taekwondo player Palesha Goverdhan won gold during the Asian Paralympics qualification rounds, advancing to the 2024 summer Paralympics games in Paris, where she won the bronze in September. Goverdhan is Nepal's first-ever Paralympic medalist, and the first athlete ever from Nepal to bring home a competitive medal in the history of the Olympic Games. 

In August, Nepal hosted the 2024 CAVA Women's Volleyball Challenge Cup, during which the national volleyball team was placed second, having lost the final match to India. 

Then in November, the Nepal U-19 women’s cricket team defeated the UAE at the Asia Qualifiers, advancing to their first-ever ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup beginning in January next year. 

Meanwhile, Nepali ultra-marathon runner Sunmaya Budha has run seven races across the world this year, most recently placing 11th overall and first among women at the 105km Tsaigu Trail in November. 

“Nepali women have been performing exceptionally across many sports events both individually and as teams,” says national volleyball player Saraswati Chaudhary. “And as our games get better, our quality of life has also begun to improve.”

Most Nepali athletes attribute the success of themselves and their teams more to teamwork, dedication and drive than government support, funding, training, and infrastructure. The Ministry of Youth and Sports is the least coveted portfolio whenever a new government is formed because it is among those that has the smallest annual budget. 

In fact, Nepal’s leaders have been too busy with their own power play to pay attention to the development of sports in Nepal. Although senior officials are fast to take credit for any outstanding performance, they do not provide athletes with adequate support, and there is even less of that for female sports people.

In fact, what is suprising is how well Nepali women athletes have been performing despite the lack of state backup.

The latest example is the 10th Nepal National Games, which was supposed to run from 17-24 November in Karnali Province but could not be held. Officials have been mum about the reasons, whether it has been postponed or suspended.  

The national budget this year allocated Rs3.5 billion to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Rs600 million of which was set aside for the National Games.

While sports in general gets the short end of the stick, female athletes are even more left out. Some of Nepal’s notable athletes in cricket, football, volleyball, and karate came together in a panel to talk about the state of women’s sport in Nepal at the Kantipur Conclave earlier this month.

They discussed, sometimes emotionally, what has prevented women from performing better in consequential tournaments. Regardless of sport, their concerns were similar: lack of infrastructure, investment, and training for female athletes. 

While the men’s teams have league, club, and other domestic games and tournaments, the women do not. 

Nepali women’s football team ranks 99th in the world, and is many notches higher that the men’s national football team, which is ranked an inglorious 176th globally. Even so, the women footballers do not get the opportunities as their male counterparts to participate in competitive domestic league and club games to gain exposure and experience.  

The same is the case for women in cricket. Nepal’s national women’s team captain Indu Barma has publicly poured scorn at the lack of domestic matches and league tournaments for female cricketers in the country, even as men have the opportunity to play in the upcoming Nepal Premier League.

This comes as other South Asian nations expand investment into sports, and women’s sports in particular. 

Days after Nepal lost the SAFF Women’s cup, a player in the national football team Preeti Rai appeared in a tv interview to highlight the difference between training regimen in neighbouring countries. 

“I learned from friends in Bhutan that they has months of intensive training, and even got homework at football camp. We did not even know you could get homework in football,” Rai mused. 

A silver lining, especially for Nepali women footballers, is that this has led them to play for international clubs, where they are gaining income and experience they would not get at home. 

Currently, 10 players from the national women’s football team roster play for international clubs. Striker Sabitra (‘Samba’) Bhandari joined the French Division 1 club En Avant Guingamp, playing her first match for the team in February. 

Team captain Anjila Tumbapo Subba signed up with the Greek A Division Women's football club Nees Atromitou in September. Seven more national team players play for Indian clubs, and for a club in Abu Dhabi.

Rai’s impassioned post on social media after the team’s loss, in which she introspected her team’s performance, her future in the sport, as well as the future of young Nepali girls who hope to become footballers, garnered much attention on social media, and opened discussions about the state of women’s sports in the country. 

What rankles women athletes the most is discrimination with their male counterparts over the issue of pay.

Male football players used to earn more than twice the amount than their female compatriots before ANFA decided to introduce equal pay in 2021. At present, contracted players from both the men’s and women’s team receive a monthly salary of Rs30,000 per month. 

However, the same does not hold in other sports. When the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) announced its central contracts for players in 2020, the male players earned more than thrice the amount that female cricketers. A new annual contract was announced earlier in 2024, for 30 male and 19 female cricketers, with players divided into four ‘grades’ from A to D, with an additional category for emerging players. 

But although salaries for players were increased, female cricketers still earn half of what their male counterparts make. 

The remuneration of volleyball players is even less. Nepal’s volleyball players receive a measly Rs5,000 monthly salary, that too not from the government but from former players based overseas who have taken the initiative to contribute. 

Money for sports tends to come only in the form of rewards and cash prizes after (and only if) players win important matches. They are also garlanded and welcomed with a parade around Kathmandu in open pickups, but not if they lose. 

Palesha Goverdhan was awarded Rs6.5 million by the government, and got more cash prizes from the private sector groups for her bronze in the Paris  Paralympics. The Nepali women’s volleyball players who won silver at the CAVA tournament received Rs300,000 as a prize. 

These rewards are well-deserved, but female athletes say investment in women’s sports needs to come in regularly, and before they win matches. 

Then there is the tremendous pressure from the Nepali public to perform better, and unending criticism when athletes are unable to meet expectations in crucial matches.  

“We’ve heard claims that the Nepali women’s team are going to play the 2027 World Cup,” Anjila Tumbapo Subba, captain of the Nepali women’s national football team, remarked sardonically at the Kantipur panel. “We might as well say that our team is going to play on the moon next.”

And as with most career paths, there are societal constraints, but perhaps more so in sports, which many Nepali national female athletes have discussed being discouraged from because “it is something boys do”.

“Just as women athletes begin to peak in their sport, there is pressure to settle down and get married, and discontinue their career,” said Saraswati Chaudhary. “I have seen many great female athletes migrate overseas because of this.”