ANFA has released a statement regarding the rumours surfacing about a betting agreement signed by it. ANFA has clearly denied such rumours and calls it a football broadcasting agreement, instead.

The whole statement reads:

All Nepal Football Association's attention has been drawn to accusations of signing a betting-related agreement with a company for betting in football matches organized by ANFA.

We strongly refute such baseless allegations and confirm that ANFA in no way or manner has been involved in betting or has signed any betting-related agreement with any companies or organization.

We would like to inform all that the agreement in question was signed with Empower Sports AG as part of the AFC League Development Programme and the AFC President’s Initiatives platform for direct football broadcasting. The agreement provides the digital rights of football matches organized by ANFA including A, B, and C Divisions, Women’s League, and Qualifiers matches for which the Empower Sports AG provides an agreed-upon fee to ANFA. It is to be noted that an agreement of such nature has been signed with many member associations across Asia.

Empower Sports also provides various technical support other than the agreed-upon fees. As the owner of digital rights, the Empower Sports broadcasts the matches on its digital platform Elevensports; it is because of the agreement and assistance with the Empower Sports that ANFA in recent years has been successful in streaming the majority of its domestic matches on various digital platforms. The betting-related provision in the agreement refers to the use of match-related data by Empower Sports for betting in countries where such betting is legal. It is clear in the wording of the agreement that ANFA is not involved whatsoever in betting. Furthermore, we would like to inform everyone that ANFA does not receive any portion of the revenue generated from betting by Empower Sports.

The agreement with Empower Sports was signed in 2018 and expires in December this year. We have reasons to believe that Elevensports will continue to provide Fifa+ with live matches from member associations from the end of 2022.

ANFA is committed to the development of football in the country. In no way ANFA is involved in violation of any national laws and abides by every rule. We humbly request everyone to make proper fact checks before making any derogatory remarks and accusations. ANFA will make no further comment on the matter.