For those that have followed Nepali football through the Internet, the name Biplav Gautam might be a familiar one. Biplav, or “Bip” as he is commonly known, is the pioneer of bringing Nepal football news on the Net. He ran several websites dedicated to Nepali football including NepalSport.com, the Nepal Football Fan Club (NFFC) website (bhakundo.org.np) and the website of former Nepal national team coach Stephen Constantine (stephenconstantine.com).

Based outside of Nepal, Biplav was a mythical figure of sorts to most people in the Nepalese football circles. We read his articles, were told about his love for Nepali football and heard about some of his accomplishment, but never was he seen at Dasarath Rangasala.

Recently though, on his extended trip to Kathmandu, SoccerAgeNepal was able to meet up with the lively 27 year-old and get the low down on him, his life and his thoughts on Nepali football.

Some excerpts from talk:

SoccerAgeNepal: So you’re Biplav Gautam? Finally, we get to meet.

Biplav: Yeah, it’s kind of crazy these days with the Internet. You have friends all across the world, but you only know them through emails or chat rooms. It’s always nice to put a face and personality to a screen name.
 
SoccerAgeNepal: Anything special bring you to Nepal this time around?

Biplav: I just had this crazy craving for some momo. But seriously, I’ve long been involved with Nepali football, so anytime I can find an excuse to come to Nepal and watch some matches I take advantage of it.

SoccerAgeNepal: So what was your excuse this time around?

Biplav: I told my boss at Citibank that I was going to get married in Nepal. When I get back I’ll tell him that she divorced me a few days after the wedding. In America they will understand (laughs)

SoccerAgeNepal: Speaking of America, how does someone living all the way across the globe start a website dedicated to football in Nepal?

Biplav: I guess my parents did a decent job raising me and I’ve always been well connected to the motherland. Being a massive sports fan I would endlessly search the Internet and other databases for news on Nepali football. It was just so hard to find anything, so I decided to start a website dedicated to football in Nepal for other soccer junkies out there.

SoccerAgeNepal: Soccer is not very popular in the USA, how did you come to follow it?

Biplav: I was born in Indonesia and then lived in Laos, Haiti, Thailand and briefly in Nepal as well, so I was well exposed to the sport. My first memories date back to Maradona at the 1986 World Cup. As for Nepali football, I remember reading about Nepal winning the SAF Games Gold Medal in Dhaka in 1993 in some obscure newspaper that my local library subscribed to. I was more in shock about finding an article about Nepali football than I was the result itself.

SoccerAgeNepal: Living abroad, how did you get all the information for your website?

Biplav: I had visited Nepal during the 1st SAFF Championships in 1997. Sushil Thapa of the Kathmandu Post did some fantastic features on Nepali football before the tournament. I clipped all his articles and accompanying photos and used them when launching the Nepal Football Homepage in January of 1999. It’s weird, how things workout, because a few years later Sushil started writing articles for the website.

The last few years, most of the material on the website came courtesy of contacts I had made back in Nepal, from Internet editions of Nepali newspapers and other online sources.

SoccerAgeNepal: You suddenly stopped your NepalSport website in September of 2004.

Biplav: Well SoccerAgeNepal took all my business! (laughs). But in all honesty after 5 years running the website, it was time to try something different. It seemed as though every new article I wrote was a repeat of an article I wrote a few years back. Also I wanted to move away from the media side and actually work with a club team. Basically, I was ready to practice what I was preaching on my website for the past five years. Now I am working with Machhindra F.C. and all my efforts are with them.

SoccerAgeNepal: Before we turn our attention to your work with MFC, you’ve been quite active in many different sports related projects.

Biplav: The website definitely opened a lot of doors for me. Lots of soccer magazines and television shows that were looking to cover or do features on Nepali football contacted me, so I’ve had the good fortune to write for and do interviews for a lot of international media. Also I was involved with the Nepal Football Fan Club for a few years and worked with former National Team coach Stephen Constantine.

Outside the Nepali football realm, I am a massive Aston Villa supporter and am quite involved with their supporter groups. I do some publicity and fundraising work for my university sports teams as well. A college sport is quite big in America.

SoccerAgeNepal: So what are doing with Machhindra F.C.?

Biplav: I’m on the executive board and we’re collectively trying to professionalize the club. We’ve started an Internet website, which – surprise, surprise – I run. We came-up with a new logo as a part of our commercial strategy. We are also focusing on expanding our donor base and bringing in corporate sponsors. Basically, we are looking at what successful clubs across the world do and we want to emulate them as much as we can. The great thing about MFC is that we have a team of very dedicated and ambitious officials who really want to move the club forward. There is an understanding that we have to look at MFC as a business and not just a football club. We need to operate like any successful business in Nepal would. 

SoccerAgeNepal: You’ve been covering Nepali football for a long time. What needs to happen to advance the game in this country?

Biplav: Football is definitely advancing in this country. It is way ahead of where it was just 3 or 4 years ago. The thing is that the sport is advancing in other nations even faster than it is here. The biggest problem in Nepal is the lack of infrastructure. Other than the departmental sides and Jawalakhel, none of the clubs have a proper practice ground. As a result it makes everything very chaotic which really hurts the development of players and in turn Nepali clubs and the National Teams are relatively weak. At MFC one of our biggest goals is to have our own training ground in the near future.

The second big issue that I see is the lack of rules and relegations. There are still many issues with player registration, there is no transfer system, league officials are using outdated rules when it comes to suspensions – the list is endless.

If just those two things could be solved, Nepali football would rocket to the next level.

SoccerAgeNepal: Do you have any other football projects in the works?

Biplav: No, not really. I am convinced that to improve Nepali football, we need to develop our football clubs and improve the standard of our league. Only then will the National Team improve. Therefore all my energy right now is dedicated to developing Machhindra F.C.

SoccerAgeNepal