The Nepal Super League has announced a revamped format for its fourth season, introducing significant structural changes aimed at modernising the franchise football tournament in the country.

Minister for Education and Sports Sasmit Pokharel, National Sports Council’s (NSC) Member Secretary Ram Charitra Mehta, and All Nepal Football Association’s (ANFA) President Pankaj Bikram Nembang attended the announcement ceremony as guests.

However, while the announcement, attended by top state and sports officials, signals expansion, concerns regarding operational logistics and infrastructure sustainability persist.

According to the organisers, the fourth season of the Nepal Super League (NSL) will kick off on September 5 in a home-away format.

Further, the number of teams is said to be increased to 10-12. There were seven teams in the third edition in April last year. There were seven teams in the first season in 2021 and nine teams in the second season in 2023.

Most importantly, the 4th NSL will run across four months—a massive expansion from the month-long tournament structure of the past three seasons. This structural overhaul leaves the governing body of Nepali football with eight months in hand for the traditional league cycle, including the A, B, and C Divisions, the C-Division Qualifier, and mofussil gold cups.

While this ambitious four-month blueprint promises to commercially reshape Nepal’s football calendar, the glamour of the expansion cannot mask a turbulent political undercurrent.

At a time when the Martyr’s Memorial ‘A’ Division League has been frozen since 2023, the sudden alignment of ANFA, the NSC, and the ministry to fast-track a private franchise venture raises immediate regulatory red flags.

The political nature of the event became clear when Minister Pokharel took the stage. “Politics and the government should stay as far as possible from football,” Pokharel said during the programme.

Yet, the state's hands appear deeply intertwined with the league's sudden revival. Pokharel had called a critical meeting between the NSC and ANFA officials at the ministry on Friday. By the end of the discussion, a ministerial-level decision lifted the NSC’s suspension on ANFA “unconditionally.”

Interestingly, the NSL’s grand expansion was announced just three days later—a swift timeline that sits uncomfortably with the long-standing, bitter tussle between ANFA and the state.

When journalists attempted to question the minister about these concerns—specifically why the suspension on ANFA was suddenly dropped and why the state is aggressively backing a private-company-owned tournament—Pokharel left the venue without responding.

The organisers later defended the abrupt exit, noting that the official itinerary did not include a question-and-answer session. After the minister’s departure, NSL’s Director Shreyans Karki stepped in to field a few remaining questions.

“We are adding some teams and the competition will be in a home-away format,” Karki said. “The clubs will also have a 50 percent stake in the NSL.”

However, major question marks remain.

There was little to no disclosure regarding the availability of proper, international-standard football grounds for all 12 teams in the specific cities they are meant to represent. Consequently, whether the expanded NSL will genuinely elevate Nepali football or permanently derail the country’s struggling domestic league cycle remains highly uncertain.

With some big players of Nepali football, like national team captain Kiran Chemjong, also attending the NSL’s announcement programme, it seems that the players would benefit from it.

“If I am in Nepal, I will definitely play in the fourth season of the NSL,” said Chemjong.

Thousands of Nepali footballers lack a proper platform without regular division club football tournaments. And when a tournament like NSL is organised at such a time, the players believe they will get the opportunity to earn some livelihood from the sport.

The NSL sees the participating franchises bid for players in an auction. The maximum price for a player in the first season was Rs200,000 and it was increased to Rs350,000 in the second. It rose to Rs400,000 in the previous season. And these were the prices for a month-long tournament.

But the NSL has paid no attention to the players’ contract.

Currently, A-Division clubs do not have players in long-term contract since the top-tier league has not been organised for three years. But when club football is regular, getting the players for NSL will be a hassle for the franchises.

Moreover, with no football in the country, professional footballers, in large numbers, have been moving to foreign countries in search of better opportunities. The 17 clubs in the ANFA National League, which is currently postponed following ANFA-NSC dispute, had also stressed the struggle to find quality footballers in the country.

“It will not be easy to run NSL and division club football together in a year unless we have specific guidelines,” Sanjeeb Mishra, ANFA’s tournament director, told the Post. “Once we have a proper system, it will blend in.”

ANFA and the Nepal Sports and Event Management (NSEM) had signed an eight-year deal for the NSL in February 2021. However, the franchise football has not seen interest from fans as in the Nepal Premier League (NPL), a franchise cricket tournament.

“Franchise league is not in the DNA of football,” a senior football administrator told the Post under condition of anonymity as he was in a position that would not suit talking against a football tournament. “Football needs clubs with history, commitment and connection with local fans.”

However, A-Division club officials argue that the NSL would not be a problem.

“I do not see much of a problem for ANFA’s club competition by the NSL,” Karma Tsering Sherpa, president of Himalayan Sherpa Club, told the Post.

Sherpa, the former ANFA president with whom NSEM had signed the NSL deal, added, “ANFA needs to introduce guidelines for the tournament. We can lend our players for NSL on loan.”

Many also speculate that the A, B and C Division clubs would not have much of a problem with the NSL, as the clubs would not have to look after the players’ salary and perks for four months.

But these are not the problems that have been raised for the first time. These have been prevalent since the first edition in 2021. Yet, the lack of a professional structure and standard has not been a must for Nepali football, where flexibility for benefit has been a virtue.

But NSL organisers stress that they were coordinating with ANFA and other stakeholders to mitigate the problems.

“We plan to organise NSL annually. And we have been given this window by ANFA,” Raju Ghising, NSL’s managing director, told the Post. “There are some shortcomings, but we will find solutions for them before the fourth season kicks off.”