As the National Basketball League ended its second run—both for the men’s and women’s categories—on June 23, national team captain Sadish Pradhan, a member of the men’s winning team, spoke of the unprecedented attention the sport has received this year. Basketball—always popular among schools and colleges, along with cricket and football—has seen its fan base grow with the league receiving more media coverage. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the popularity of local sports is on the rise—especially with the rise of local cricket and basketball leagues. Yet, when looking at how institutional set-ups have been crippling popular sports from within for years, their rise against the odds becomes particularly laudable.

Almost every sport imaginable has an official association under the National Sports Council. And yet, most of the times, it is unclear what is the purpose of such associations, since they seem to do very little for the sports they claim to support. There are numerous examples of the incompetencies of such sports associations. The Nepal Basketball Association, for example, has had little to do with the recent rise in the popularity of basketball. The trend-setting league is not even organised by this association and is instead run by Play for Deprived Children Nepal—a private entity. The association is limited to organising an annual tournament that players call short and inadequate.

The All Nepal Football Association (Anfa) for years had been mired in corruption and weakened by bad management. The top-tier football league has been unable to run smoothly on an annual basis due to internal wranglings that almost saw Nepal banned from competing internationally. Even now, after the much-touted revamp of management personnel last year, there have been accusations of irregularities at Anfa. The story is similar in cricket, as the International Cricket Council had banned the Cricket Association of Nepal in April 2016 for bad management practices and for government interference in its workings.

Much of the problems in management seem to flow from the top. National Sports Council this year managed to barely pull off the 8th edition of the National Games. If the council was competent at all, this could have been the 19th edition of the games since the games were originally thought of as a biennial event in the 1980s. Moreover, the concerned authorities have been unable to host the 13th South Asian Games, which was supposed to be held in March 2018, citing the lack of infrastructure. Yet, it is the same institutions that have been struggling to renovate the Dashrath Rangasala, and other necessary infrastructure, that was left in dilapidated conditions for years.

The popularity of sports in Nepal is unquestionable. People from all walks of life lose sleep to catch their favourite international sports teams play, and Nepalis are also seen carrying banners and wearing merchandise in support of their favourite teams. There is no reason that, with efficient management and promotion from the grassroots level and up, Nepalis will not one day support, say, the Friends Club in the AFC Champions League with more zeal than they did for Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League this year. But for any sport, bodies like the sports council and relevant associations are very important to grow them to a point of commercial and sporting success. The corruption and ineptitude need to end.