Kathmandu, June 25 -- While Prime Minister Balendra Shah was posting on Facebook about his favourite team at the 2026 World Cup, and his education and sports minister was cradling a miniature trophy with "Dream, Nepal in this someday," the institution responsible for making that dream real was busy engineering its own destruction.

On Thursday, FIFA suspended the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) indefinitely because a handful of officials at the National Sports Council (NSC) have been unable to set aside their egos long enough to let an election happen.

The decision is a humiliation for Nepali sports without precedent. Nepal has been affiliated with FIFA since 1972. In more than half a century of dysfunction, dispute and political m...