By Sachit Subba • ESPORTS • Aug 01, 2026 06:12 AM • 203 views
KATHMANDU — A bitter power struggle within Nepal's sports administration has effectively shattered the Asian Games dreams of the country's national PUBG Mobile team.
After battling through gruelling regional qualifiers in Vietnam to earn a legitimate berth at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, the five-player squad now finds itself completely excluded from the official delegation. The culprit is not a defeat on the virtual battleground, but systemic administrative negligence and a feud between rival esports governing bodies.
During qualifying matches held from June 19 to 21 in Vietnam, the Nepalese roster—competing under the banner name Team Nepal—punched above its weight. Battling self-funded travel expenses and intense competition, the squad featuring Dipesh Gurung (DeltaX), Samir Costello (Zyo), Sonu Karki (Bia Bia), Rohit Tamang (Zordy), and Saurabh Tamang (TMG-8) locked down a seventh-place finish among 23 competing nations. That result comfortably inside the top-eight threshold guaranteed Nepal a direct path to Japan alongside continental heavyweights like South Korea, China, and Chinese Taipei.
Instead of celebration, the achievement turned into a nightmare. As the National Sports Council (NSC) finalised registration for 22 discipline categories through the Nepal Olympic Committee (NOC), esports was conspicuously absent. The root cause traces back to a political tug-of-war between two parallel institutions: the internationally recognised Nepal Esports Association (NESA), led by Dhurba Dangol, and the state-backed Esports Association of Nepal (ESAN), established under former NSC leadership and headed by Anjan Dhamla.
With NESA managing the international qualification route and ESAN holding state clout, the political stalemate froze administrative action. NSC Member Secretary Ram Charitra Mehta claimed ignorance regarding the team's qualification process, stating that official entries required prior submission on an approved "long list" by a recognised federation. However, team manager Hom Bahadur Tamang revealed that repeated attempts to brief both Mehta and Sports Minister Sasmit Pokharel yielded no audience or relief, leaving the athletes completely stranded.
The human cost of this administrative impasse was on full display at a press conference in Kathmandu on Friday. Gurung, a 23-year-old veteran who represented Nepal at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, expressed deep disillusionment over the state’s inaction, noting that years of 10-to-12-hour daily training sessions ended up wasted by political manoeuvring rather than athletic performance.
With registration deadlines closing, the players who once celebrated on the floor in Vietnam now face the harsh reality that institutional rivalry has stripped them of their rightful place on Asia's biggest sporting stage.
